


The Daemon Haunted World

by GleGeal



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Daemons, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Community: sparktober, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-01-15 05:26:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 27,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21248177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GleGeal/pseuds/GleGeal
Summary: The Atlantis expedition arrives to the lost city of the Ancients, bringing not just themselves but their daemons along for the ride.  Somethings happen a little differently when your soul lives outside your body. Especially for Elizabeth and John.





	1. Antarctica

**Author's Note:**

> In honour of Sparktober, a reimagining of Stargate Atlantis with the daemons from His Dark Materials. 
> 
> There'll be a few episode snippets but will then become a canon divergence of Season 4 and 5. 
> 
> And if anyone feels inspired to write this AU properly I'd be delighted!! 
> 
> John and Elizabeth's daemons names are adapted from old English:  
Dreoides: Magical queen/lady, enchantress  
Bealdor: lord, master, hero
> 
> Text in // is daemon and \\\ is human chatting to their other half.

John kept one eye on the wolf as he ran through the chopper’s pre-flight checks. The wolf was hard to miss: jet black against the ice field around McMurdo, running pell-mell along the outer perimeter of the base. Checks complete, John expected the latest of their unusual visitors any minute -  
\\\ Get back here, quick! \\\ he sent to his daemon, \\\ and try to keep a low profile.. \\\ 

By the time the 2-star general (O’Neill with two L’s, and what the hell was someone like him doing somewhere like this anyway?) exited the base, all geared up, and approached the chopper, Bealdor was only 10ft away. A respectable separation distance. He bounded up to John and in through the open rear door to squeeze himself into the footwell behind John’s pilots seat. John saluted the general, whose rhesus monkey daemon skittered onto his shoulder as he strapped in and eyed John critically as he took off.  
“Are we sure he know’s how to fly this thing?” the monkey didn’t seem too trusting - obviously the general knew about his record.  
And what would you know… The monkey was a male. Baeldor’s ears pricked up:  
// Well, well, well, it’s becoming a regular episode of “Misfits on Ice!” in McMurdo these days. //  
\\\ Yeah, we’re practically normal, Something weird is definitely going on around here. \\\

And there really was no denying how weird things had gotten around the base lately. Scientists from every discipline, aerospace engineers, and one rather attractive diplomat who wouldn’t have been out of place in the White House. Definitely not the nerdy astronomers John was used to. 

And to top it all off, this general made the third person with a same-sex daemon that John had ferried out to the obscure and top secret research lab this week. He’d gone his whole entire life without meeting another person like him who wasn’t his immediate family. Now they were popping up like daisies in Spring. 

The annoying monkey was still giving him the eye.  
// I could snap his neck, no problem // Baeldor plopped his head on John’s shoulder.  
John relaxed a little and repressed a smirk:  
\\\ Yeah, just what we need to make this ski vacation permanent! \\\  
“So, General, nice weather for a trip - ”  
“What in the Heck -! ”

A missile shot towards them from out of nowhere. John’s training kicked in and he took evasive action, throwing the chopper into some complicated manoevers as the missile doubled back and came around for another pass. He was just managing to keep them in one piece while he performed an emergency landing and they had just thrown themselves from the chopper when the missile skidded to a halt in the snow before them, inert. Before John could stop him Bealdor was pouncing on the thing and prodding it with his paw. “Look’s dead!” he called to the others. 

Jack grinned, “Nice flying!”, and gave Mac a speculative look  
\\\ He’s got a male daemon. What was it the Scottish Doc said? \\\  
Mac huffed, // Wouldn’t hurt to give him a chance - how much trouble could he get into? //

“This is one weird day” John powered up the chopper as Jack gathered up the Ancient drone.

Jack clapped the pilot on his shoulder,  
“Trust me. You’re day is about to get one whole hell of a lot weirder!”

~

“ You just had to sit in the weird looking chair, didn’t you? Couldn’t have found a nice, normal, human , chair.”  
Bealdor was curled up comfortably at John’s back as he fidgeted with the coin. He still couldn’t quite wrap his head around the whole ancient aliens and wormholes and the lost city of Atlantis thing. Atlantis for god’s sake!  
And now here he was, back in the US, debating with himself over whether or not to take a possibly one way trip to another galaxy. Bealdor had already made up his mind, but John needed to think it through logically.  
“Well, at least now we know why we are the way we are.”

He’d spent his whole life wondering why he was different, why Bealdor was a boy when all the other little boys had girl-daemons and looked at them funny when they spoke. 

“We’d fit in there, we could make a difference.” 

That was tempting. 

“And that little vixen could get me to agree to anything!” Bealdor sighed. He’d been bringing up Dr Weir’s daemon a lot since Antarctica. Far more than John was comfortable thinking about. Her speech had been persuasive and he’d felt an instant kinship with her and her daemon. They definitely weren’t the kind of boss they were used to dealing with. All civilian highmindedness and idealism. He had a feeling they were going to need all the help they could get on this mission.  
And the fact that he seemed to be the only one who realised her daemon was a vixen - what was with that? Yet another weird thing to add to his exponentially growing list. 

Aliens, lost cities, and wormholes. 

“I guess we’re going to Atlantis.”

He put the coin away.


	2. First Meetings

Elizabeth cradled Dreoides to her as she read through the latest progress reports and then checked over the paperwork for the latest team members security clearances and NDAs.  
“They’ve agreed to come then.”  
Dreoides brush swished idly back and forth against her arm, her green eyes keenly fixed on John Sheppard’s paperwork. She had been delighted they’d discovered someone with such a strong ATA gene expression and Major Sheppard seemed to eclipse even Jack’s intuitive understanding of Ancient technology. He would be a great asset to the expedition when they got to Atlantis, though Col. Sumner was going to have his work cut out for him keeping the Major in line.  
There was just one small problem. 

“They see right through us.”

Elizabeth could feel her daemon’s excitement bubbling up between them. And her attraction to the black wolf and his human that Elizabeth wasn’t ready to acknowledge quite yet. 

Sheppard was yet more proof of Carson’s theory that those with the ATA gene displayed daemons of the same sex as their humans. He’d also postulated that those daemon’s often showed unusual abilities. His own badger Broc had an uncanny ability to accurately diagnose patients and determine the cause of their illnesses that had served Carson well. 

For centuries such individuals had been viewed with a measure of distrust; as outcasts or psychics, freaks or sometimes simply as unfortunate, depending on the time and place. Elizabeth was fascinated by the cultural aspects: Carson for instance had grown up in Scotland where they’d been thought of as otherworldly creatures touched by magic and respected by the community. He’d been made to feel special and was appalled by how the Magisterium in the US condemned them. He was desperate to publish his work with the world’s medical community and explain the biological origins of the ‘condition’, even though Elizabeth wasn’t sure that “we’re partly another species of ancient human” would help their cause any. 

Sheppard’s file described him as solitary, good at following his own instincts rather than towing the military’s line. Not too strange: People like them were often socially isolated as kids or teens. They tended to form connections with those like them - which explained how they hadn’t been bred out of existence according to Carson.  
“Oh, well, we should definitely mention that next time we see them!”  
How Dreoides could make that ‘butter wouldn’t melt’ expression as a vixen Elizabeth would never know. So she gave her daemon her favourite glare and tried to go back to her papers. 

There was one thing that all so-called ‘unbalanced’ people knew: you either got good at fending for yourself. 

Or you got good at hiding. 

Elizabeth had been an only child, much loved and sheltered from the outside world until she’d started school. That was when she discovered that Dreoides could pretend.. Pretend to be a boy. Pretend to be anything she wanted her to be. 

It had felt so nice when all the other children wanted to play with them, were happy to sit with them at recess and invite them to their birthday parties. Just so long as they saw Dreoides as a boy. 

Elizabeth honed her story-telling abilities, able to charm the other children with her fantastical tales while Dreoides became a great dragon or a gentle unicorn or a fiery phoenix as they looked on in awe. 

Neither of them had ever really given it much thought. Like all children they had accepted the world as it was. It wasn’t until Elizabeth had reached her late teens and all her friends daemons had settled that they allowed themselves to admit that they were never going to be like everyone else and that they were only fooling themselves that they would ever truly fit in.  
That Dreoides could still become whatever Elizabeth needed her to be - to weave her tales to charm people into doing as she asked - had at first left her feeling disconnected and unnatural. 

It had slowly dawned on her that her friends daemons had a settled form that everyone perceived and reflected their personality in some sense. That other people judged a person’s character by the form of their daemon. And that every other person saw her Dreo as something different: a cat, an owl, a raven - and always a male - whatever best suited her needs in that situation.  
And they never noticed if what she needed from them changed with the weather or that other people saw her in different forms at the same time… 

Only Elizabeth’s mother and father had ever seen her Dreo as Elizabeth saw her: a russet, green-eyed vixen with a little black tip to the white on her brush. 

Until one Major John Sheppard and his shaggy black wolf had crashed into her life that is, and turned it upside down. 

~ 

Elizabeth had just convinced Jack to let her bring John onto the Atlantis team, arguing that his own track record of independent thinking had served the planet well - Dreo had been a black cat glaring at Mac while the monkey fidgeted - and had rescued him from Carson’s tests and Rodney’s demands to activate every Ancient device in the outpost (Stella had squawked indignantly and ruffled her parrot feathers as she dragged him away). 

She had adopted her best ‘diplomat in charge’ persona, Dreo settling on her shoulder as a wise old owl, and commenced with her ‘next great adventure of mankind / save the world’ speech.  
John had been giving her some odd looks as she spoke, eyes drifting to her Dreo before focusing back on her. His daemon hadn’t even tried to be discreet but was staring fixedly up at hers, his eyes tracking slowly back and forth.  
Elizabeth felt inexplicably unnerved, but she kept her diplomat’s smile in place: “I imagine you have a great many questions, and I or any of the expedition will be happy to answer them - just ask!” 

“Oh, I’ve a few alright,” John drawled, “but let’s start with...”  
Bealdor cut him off, “Why is your daemon pretending she’s a bird?”

Elizabeth had never been at a loss for words in her life before, always eloquently employing them to avert wars and negotiate minefields. 

“You mean my Drew? He’s a barn owl.” It sounded a little lame even to her own ears.

John and his wolf exchanged a befuddled glance and were obviously having a lengthy chat amongst themselves. The wolf shifted to the side to stare up at them from another angle as if to confirm what they were both seeing, a look of amused disbelief on his face.

Disbelief John obviously shared.

“Oooo-kay then. But you should know your ‘barn owl’, she has a brush!”  
“Just sayin’ ” John grabbed hold of the scruff of his wolf’s neck before he could, Elizabeth thought, take a playful bite at said brush. 

Elizabeth felt like the world had tilted its axis and no one had consulted her about it.  
She eyed the new Major warily, debating her options. 

He caught her eye and held her gaze, and suddenly it seemed as if time had slowed down and there was just the two of them in the world.  
// We can trust them // Dreoides whispered in her heart. 

Elizabeth broke their gaze, put on her diplomatic mask and said:  
“It’s a long story - join the expedition and I’ll get around to sharing it with you one day! ” 

She had hurried away, leaving a very confused Major in her wake. She could feel the wolf daemon’s eyes on their backs as she went. She could only hope that in all the other weird things that had happened to them today, this one would slip their minds and that the next time they met he would see Dreo just as she wanted him to. 

~

Sitting in her hotel room, now, in Colorado Springs, Elizabeth thought about how he could see Dreo and how she could possibly explain something she had never truly understood herself. 

Perhaps it was one of those unusual abilities Carson had spoken of? 

Perhaps it was just him. 

She shook herself and Dreoides hopped to the floor to stretch her paws. 

// We’ll figure it out once we get to Atlantis. The answers are there. // 

Elizabeth could appreciate Dreo’s optimism, but felt it was misplaced. Carson had tested her twice with the same result: no ATA gene identified. She couldn’t activate Ancient devices the way the others could. 

But then why was Dreoides the way she was?

Why could her daemon hear the Ancient tech whispering to her?


	3. Wraith

John could barely contain his horror as he watched the Wraith queen feed on the captive Col. Sumner. He had come here to rescue his superior officer, but there was hardly anything left but a shell of the once strong man. One of the alien’s hands was pressed against the colonel’s chest and seemed to be drawing the life right out of him. 

But that wasn’t the worst of it. 

In the other hand, the Wraith held Sumner’s daemon..

She seemed to be fading around the edges, becoming translucent as the alien creature drained golden light from her. Just like the dust they formed when they died.. 

Bealdor pressed closer to him.  
// There’s only one thing we can do for them now. Take the shot and we run! //

John took the shot.


	4. Bad Weather

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Storm / The Eye.

Dreoides was still giggling over the assignments for the grounding stations as they headed back to the control room. Rodney and Stella were there already, going over the schematics for the city wide superconductor conduits once again to ensure the connections to the naquadah generators would hold.

The last of the evacuees had gone through the gate leaving just the three of them and the two marines guarding the gateroom. John and Bealdor had yet to make it back from their second station, but they were on schedule and Elizabeth was confident they’d have the shield up in time to weather the storm. The last puddle jumper had been due back with Carson, Ford, and Teyla half an hour ago, and Elizabeth was considering whether they could still make it to the city ahead of the storm when one of the Marines radioed in that the ‘gate was dialing up.  
“There’s a medical emergency, Ma’am”, the Marine continued,“we have wounded Athosians coming through the ‘gate.”  
Elizabeth broke into a run, Dreoides in leopard form loping at her side. Reaching the top of the Gateroom stairs, she took in the scene below: a woman with a snake demon helping a young man, and an older man lying on a stretcher with a hyena daemon at his side…  
// None of the Athosians have an hyena daemon, ‘Bethan! //  
“It’s a trap! Close the ‘gate!”

Her warning came too late. The two marines were felled immediately by the hyena’s human, their daemons disappearing into clouds of golden dust. Elizabeth froze for an instant, looking on in horror as two of her people died.. The strike force fanned out, guns raised, it was too late to run. They dragged Rodney away from his console and motioned her with their guns to the centre of the room. Dreoides shrank back, becoming a bee and crawling up her sleeve to hide against her chest. The hyena stared up at Stella perched on Rodney’s shoulder and bared her fangs. Rodney paled and moved closer to Elizabeth.  
She recognised the uniforms - Genii. They were in trouble. 

“Dr Weir. I’m Commander Acastus Kolya - and Atlantis is now ours.” 

Elizabeth didn’t bother replying, for now she had nothing to leverage. She was going to have to rely on John’s approach to diplomacy this time. 

~

Kolya had dragged them to the grounding station on the East pier to decouple the lightning rods again. Elizabeth was soaked to the skin and freezing to death but she was determined that they were going to delay fixing this thing as long as possible to give John more time.  
Koyla was arguing with him now over the comms, to coerce him into turning himself in. 

Without warning his gun was pointing right at her, and Elizabeth felt a spike of fear go through her. 

Dreo crawled across her skin to place herself over her heart. She could vaguely hear John pleading for her life but it wasn’t working.. 

Dreo was going to pounce, she was going to risk it.. 

Rodney stepped in front of her. Elizabeth blinked.  
“You can’t kill her! You need the both of us! If you want to access the shield systems then you’re going to need Dr. Weir’s command codes.. And..”  
He was babbling. She put her hand on his arm, softly, “He gets it Rodney.”  
“Oh. Well.” A bedraggled Stella ruffled her feathers and smiled weakly at Elizabeth before nuzzling Rodney with her beak. 

The hyena hissed at them as Kolya turned away,  
“How’s this for credibility, Major Sheppard - Dr. Weir is dead!”

~ 

John’s world had narrowed down to one purpose: revenge. Kolya’s words rang in his ears, the sound of that deranged hyena’s laughter.. He would destroy the city before he let Kolya take it, he would make him pay..  
Bealdor whimpered in anguish and pressed closer to John’s side.  
“They can’t be dead, they can’t be.” He had no words to comfort his daemon.  
“We’re going to tear them to pieces for this!!”  
John calmly checked his weapons and the Ancient life-signs detector and started towards his next target. “Let’s go hunt some Genii.”

John took up a position on the gantry, luring the Genii into the room below him. Bealdor drifted through the shadows, circling around to cut off their escape. As they came into view below them John took out the lead soldier with a short burst of gunfire, while Bealdor pounced on the dog daemon of the trailing soldier, cleanly snapping her neck. The soldier dropped like a stone, his comrade turning to take aim at Bealdor, but John was quicker, firing off another round and the final daemon disintegrated into a cloud of golden dust. Bealdor shook the dust from his fur, and they moved on to the next target. 

~

The freezing rain and high winds gave Rodney and Elizabeth some excuse for their slow progress in detaching the grounding station’s infrastructure, but Kolya’s suspicions were rising.  
\\\ Dreo, we need to buy more time - see if you can cause some damage? \\\  
// Are you asking me to be a bug in the system?// Dreo giggled at her own pun causing Elizabeth to roll her eyes. Dreoides crawled down the inside of Elizabeth’s top and trouser leg as a tiny red ladybird, before venturing out as aye-aye onto the base of the conductor.  
“What’s taking so long?” Kolya had one hand restraining his hissing hyena and the other pointed the gun in their direction.  
The high winds buffeted Dreoides in her small form but she managed to prize open a panel and reach inside without the hyena noticing...  
“Shouldn’t be too much longer, we just have to get this power converter to disengage and then we can...” Rodney was pointing at the display.  
… Dreoides pulled loose the nearest control crystal and pushed the panel shut…  
“Oh what now!” the display had gone dark. Rodney bent closer to the screen.  
Kolya came closer: “What’s gone wrong??”  
“Nothing, nothing! Just a small setback, let me run the diagnostic - just a few more minutes.”  
Dreoides settled against her once more, Elizabeth smiled tightly and tamped down a shiver. 

~

The platoon of Genii soldiers was due through the ‘gate. John had reactivated the naquadah generator supplying the gateroom and was heading there to provide them with what he considered a suitable welcome: an activated iris shield.  
Bealdor was dragging his paws, and John knew he wanted to find Elizabeth and .. No just Elizabeth now, Dreoides would be gone. Bealdor whined softly. John ran his fingers through his daemon’s fur and the wolf nuzzled his hand. “Go, find her, meet me in the control room.”  
Bealdor was gone before he’d finished thinking, disappearing into the shadows of Atlantis’ darkened corridors.  
John continued to the tower. 

~

Elizabeth had stopped shivering and that wasn’t a good sign. They were almost done, which was good because Kolya was getting trigger happy again, his daemon snipping at their heels. Rodney was barely holding Stella to him with his injured arm as the winds whipped around them. Elizabeth leant over to hold the last panel in place when she spotted something moving in her peripheral vision.  
Dreoides crept up to her shoulder as a dormouse, // Bealdor!//, Elizabeth shared her daemon’s relief as she scurried down her leg again and, waiting until Stella had the hyena’s attention, scurried across the exposed deck towards the relative safety of the corridor and the waiting wolf.  
Elizabeth felt the horrible pull in her chest as Dreo struggled to move closer to him.  
Bealdor had by now overcome the intense shock he had felt on seeing the two of them and slunk closer along the floor. Dreoides flung herself towards him and into her vixen form. The two daemons touched their snouts gently, murmuring softly. “We thought we’d lost you!” He had barely believed his eyes, overjoyed to see them alive and well - a feeling he had shared instantly with John. Time seemed to slow; the two daemons calmed by the others touch.  
For Elizabeth the storm and the danger seemed to fade, giving way to warmth.  
For John, the contact seemed to drain the darkness that had overtaken his psyche. Colour seemed to seep back into the world.  
In front of him the stargate engaged and bursts of golden light began to bloom behind the shield. Genii foot soldiers stepping unknowingly to their deaths.  
From John, to Bealdor, to Dreoides, to Elizabeth. She couldn’t justify this, even in their current circumstances: \\\ We need to at least try to salvage this situation if we ever want to forge an alliance with these people! \\\  
Back up the chain, John sighed and entered his activation codes for the gate’s radio system.  
“You might want to hold off on that invasion, before any more of your men end up as dust!”  
He deactived the system and moved back into the shadows before Sora or the other Genii on the floor could reach him.  
The bursts of gold ceased and the gate shut off. 

John hoped that Ford, Teyla, and Carson were in place with the jumper… 

~

Kolya was incensed; the hyena seemed to be trying to tear itself apart - Elizabeth and Rodney shared a worried glance as they were pushed and shoved with a gun at their backs towards the control tower. Dreoides became a tiny moth and fluttered back to Elizabeth as she was herded passed. Bealdor crouched in the shadows until they were out of sight then catiously followed. 

Kolya was now more dangerous than ever - he knew he had lost the city and, like a wild animal caught in a trap, there was no telling what he would do to escape. 

~

With the aid of their own newly arrived reinforcements, the Atlantis team had gained the upper hand: the Genii were captured or fleeing through the gate.  
Kolya smashed his gun against the back of Rodney’s skull, knocking him to the ground. Elizabeth instinctively moved to catch him but Kolya grabbed her, his arm going around her neck in a choke hold, and dragged her backwards with him towards the wormhole event horizon. She struggled, dropped her weight, and tried to free herself from his iron grip but found herself losing ground.  
“Let her go!”  
Elizabeth’s eyes locked on John with relief as he appeared before her, aiming his P-90 at them.  
The hyena hissed and snarled, focused entirely on John.  
“You won’t fire and risk hurting Dr. Weir!”  
They were almost to the gate now.  
“I’m not aiming at her.”  
The shot rang out. A blur of dark fur barrelled into her side pushing her away from the open wormhole as Kolya fell backwards, turning to escape through the gate. His daemon screamed and made to follow him but Bealdor caught her hind leg and pulled. Desperate, the hyena tried to claw at his face, almost succeeding in shaking him.. But then Dreoides pounced in lioness form. 

The gate shut down. 

The hyena’s screams faded into the shimmering cloud of dust. 

For a moment there was stillness. 

Then John kicked into gear and ran forward to help Elizabeth to her feet. The two daemons circled their humans closely.  
“You okay?” John was a veteran, and he’d seen people crack under pressure like this.  
“No.” She looked shellshocked.  
“You will be! ” All that mattered was she was still alive. 

John reached out to grab Elizabeth’s hand. Right now they had work to do to secure the city. 

Bealdor looked at a shivering Dreoides and couldn’t help himself. He nudged her gently, then rubbed his flank along hers to comfort and support her. She leaned against his side, and buried her nose in the fur of his neck.  
The two humans swayed a little on their feet as a wave of comfort and peace flowed through them. John’s death grip on Elizabeth’s hand eased a little as he led her up the stairs, before reluctantly letting go. 

The daemons curled up together under the desk in Elizabeth’s office as their humans worked.  
It felt so right, like coming home. The spoke together softly and waited for the storm to pass.


	5. The Road Not Taken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Before I Sleep.

The pot was still sitting on the corner of her desk, where she has left it earlier. Before she was called away to deal with the latest crazy occurence in Atlantis. Before she had discovered an alternate version of herself. One who had been keeping her city safe for the last ten thousand years.   
Ten thousand years… Elizabeth slumped into her chair, staring unblinking at her birthday gift from John. The birthday she’d unknowingly shared with her alternate self. And the gift she would now use as a funerary urn to hold the ashes of the other Elizabeth. A shiver passed through her.   
Someone walking over her grave - only it was herself. 

Dreoides leapt into her lap and snuggled up against her, trying to warm and comfort her, and put an end to her morose train of thought. 

// The city is here because of her, we’re still alive because of her sacrifice. That counts for something right? She was happy to be able to save us all.. And she got to meet the actual Ancients… // 

Elizabeth felt that that was cold comfort for spending the next ten thousand years in stasis. All alone. For all those millenia.   
// But not at the end. // 

No not at the end. They’d at least got to see their city on the surface, see the light streaming through the stained glass of the towers. Elizabeth had been on the verge of objecting, her other self seeming so frail and weak. But Carson had reassured her and John had insisted on giving her the VIP tour. Her other self had seemed charmed by his galantry, with Bealdor faithfully staying close to her wheel chair, keeping an eye on the aged vixen curled up in her human’s lap. 

Elizabeth had found herself caught up in her other self’s fantastical tale of a flooding city, accidental time travel, and awaking to a vibrant city filled with Ancients. A story that reminded her of the tales she and Dreoides used to tell, though the other vixen remained quiet and didn’t change form as she had been used to do. She had told them of the Ancient council’s reluctance to help their descendants or their own city, and Janus’ desperate plan to save the future. Elizabeth herself would have given almost anything to have experienced the city as it was, to have met the ancient Alterans and learnt about their culture, language, and history. To learn the answers to so many questions…

// Like why they are such b*****ds to their own descendants?? //

Dreoides plopped down on top of her with a huff, answering her stern look with a raised eyebrow and a sly grin. // It’s a valid question after all… //  
It was true, Elizabeth had to admit - the Ancients had made some terrible blunders, the knock on effects of which were still ricocheting down the ages. 

Leading to the most interesting three facts in the other Elizabeth’s tale:  
The first: According to her elderly self, the majority of the Alterans did appear to have a daemon of the same sex as themselves, and had thought Dreoides and herself to be quite ordinary.   
The second: That they had also, for the most part it seemed, been aware that she was female. A fact they usually concealed and that her other self confirmed to her they had been doing unconsciously when they arrived. 

And the third, the one that had gotten both herself and Dreoides excited: Her other self had claimed to be able to use Ancient technology in the past. She confirmed that in her own present she had not been able to, but on past Atlantis she had been able to sense the technology, communicate mentally with the city’s systems, and to activate devices with ease. Her description of interacting with the city in a way that Elizabeth herself had never been able to do, had left them, if they were being honest (and they always were with each other) feeling terribly jealous. 

Neither of them could explain how this had happened. Her other self hadn’t even blinked when she had asked her not to discuss it with the others, understanding the need she felt for secrecy. Though she had inquired whether it was something she discussed with John (and that darling wolf of his)… 

On waking from her suspended animation for the first time to cycle the ZPMs, she had once again found the city quiet and unresponsive. She’d assumed that the city’s subsystems had been shut down to conserve power during her long trip back to her own time. 

But once again, on waking from the pod, the city remained quiet, a barely there presence, a faint whisper in the back of Dreoide’s mind that she could never quite focus on.   
The elderly vixen had been a little enlivened by her younger counterpart's interest, and had described the sensation to them in great detail. It was just like their own. 

Time had caught up to them then, as if their last reserve of energy had been used up, and they had faded quickly. Far sooner than Elizabeth had been ready to deal with.   
Her older self passed peacefully, surrounded by the people she had saved and who she’d once been close to calling friends. 

Elizabeth hadn’t been ready to see the other Dreoides dissolve into a cloud of golden dust and dissappear into the aether. They had been left with the bittersweet knowledge of a fate that was almost theirs, and more confused than ever about their nature and inability to use Ancient tech. 

What was the difference in the past, before the Alterans abandoned the city? Had they changed something after they left? Had time somehow changed her? 

Elizabeth could feel the beginnings of a migraine threatening, so she buried the existential angst, picked up the pot, and with Dreo draped around her shoulders, went to see about her own funeral.


	6. Six months

The mission had seemed like yet another boring ancient artifact outing until they’d found the gateway. They had identified some ancient text about ascension, while Bealdor had nosed around at his lower eye level for anything of interest, a few feet away from John and the gateway. Rodney had taped a camera to a stick and stuck it through to find a cave on the other side. John put his hand out to touch the portal and the next thing Bealdor knew, his human was gone. 

Bealdor felt a horrible jolt as John disappeared through the archway and immediately bounded after him, only to run full tilt into a solid wall of an unyielding gateway. A little dazed he regained his footing and tried again, more slowly this time. Still nothing. He couldn’t follow his John, he was lost somewhere without him. What would he do? He could be hurt? John couldn’t find his way around his own room with him. 

// John! John, answer me, you silly human! //

He was hit by a flash of jumbled images and thoughts, all bundled up together. He could barely make any of them out before they faded away. He could hear John, it was just all so garbled… so, fast. At least he seemed to be alive, even if he was apparently on speed.  
Bealdor sighed with relief.  
// I can’t follow you through, it’s blocking me. We’ll get help, just hold on!, We’ll be there in a sec. // 

Rodney was by now frantically science-ing, while Ronan and Teyla increased the pace of their search for clues, quickly finding a wall of Ancient-looking writings. Rodney paled as he looked at the recording on the camera - “Time is moving faster in there than it is out here!” The team hastily threw what supplies they had through the gateway.  
Hengar, Teyla’s cat daemon, spoke up - “ We should return to Atlantis and seek assistance.”  
“Yes, you are correct: Elizabeth can perform the translation. Rodney, remain here. Ronan, watch over him. We will return as quickly as we can.” 

Hengar looked askance at Bealdor, “We will reunite you with your John, do not worry.”  
Stella and Willa, all stared at him with pity and something a little like disgust. Bealdor made a point of settling as close as daemonly possible to the gateway and looking pained, though the physical separation didn’t bother him in the least. He was pretty sure John was only a couple of klicks away at most. 

// Hold on, John, Elizabeth’s on her way. //

He wasn’t sure how happy John was going to be about that, given the circumstances, but Bealdor felt oddly headachy and couldn’t wait to be close to Dreoides and her human. 

-

John had never felt so alone in his entire life. 

The shock of losing instant communication with his daemon had been sickening, and even now, months later, he still felt queasy frequently, and a little woozy if he tried to move too fast. Which wasn’t something that happened very often in this god-forsaken, pitiful excuse for a ‘cloister’. 

The other inhabitants had their daemons with them, but believed that the gateway had been sealed to keep out unclean or evil spirits. Oh, and daemons. Wonderful. 

So now, he was left feeling like he and Bealdor were existing in two different worlds at once. He wasn’t geographically far away, but.. He didn’t have to be Rodney to figure out that time seemed to be moving at a much faster rate inside the Cloister. It explained why Bealdor’s responses seemed to take days to filter through. Like he was thinking through molasses. And it also explained why no one had come to rescue him yet. Apparently, they were moving as fast as they could.  
The locals were at least friendly, if a little nutty about all this Ascension stuff. Not something that interested him in the slightest. The locals seemed to think it required ‘merging’ with one’s daemon. “Becoming one with oneself,” they said in meditation.  
John tried not to scoff, but seriously, that sounded way too weird. He caught himself looking down to trade smirks with Bealdor, but his wolf wasn’t there. It was disconcerting to say the least. 

The creature that seemed to be hunting the locals was not as friendly. He tried to warn Bealdor and by extension his team, to bring weapons and be prepared. The locals believed that only Ascension could save them. John put his faith in his P-90 and his people. 

// Elizabeth’s ……. //

// On ……… //

// Her …….. //

// Way. //

John was not happy. 

-

Bealdor felt a little tipsy and wobbly on his four legs. Time seemed a bit wonky. Everyone’s movements kept slipping in and out of synch with his perception of time. He was beginning to feel a little cold. 

“Bealdor! What happened? Are you ok?” 

Dreoides rushed towards him, pushing the limits of her separation from Elizabeth, who quickened her pace to keep up. Bealdor was now lying across the threshold of the gateway to the Cloister and Dreoides immediately wrapped herself around him. Warmth flooded through him, a little temporal clarity was restored, leaving him more able to focus on his surroundings. 

“I’m okay,” he growled playfully, “but John on the other hand is getting Really bored of the provincial life!”  
Now that Dreoides and Elizabeth were here he felt less worried about John. Okay, so he still sounded like an old cassette player on fast forward but other than some vague reference to a boogey monster that Baeldor hadn’t quite been able to decipher, he seemed to be doing fine. 

“Bealdor, tell John we’re here and we’re working on shutting down the force field preventing daemons from going through.” 

Bealdor thought all that to John, and the vertigo hit him full force, “It’s like he’s living in the fast lane,” his whispered to Dreoides. 

Elizabeth got to work on the translation, pointing out the relevant parts to Rodney as they worked on the controls. 

“The Ancients erected a temporal and psychical shield around this valley” Rodney exclaimed, still deep in science mode as he deactivated both the time delay and the daemon-shield. Though still managing to look condescending as he and Stella talked them through the techno babble.  
Bealdor rolled his eyes at the girls, and Elizabeth and Dreoides shared a long suffering look that they kindly included him in. He gave them a wolfish grin and a wink. 

“Aha! I’ve done it!” 

Rodney hadn’t finished his sentence before Bealdor was on his feet and bounding through the portal. 

Stella squawked indignantly and grumbled about ungrateful wolves, while Rodney gathered up the nearby equipment. Ronan and Willa chuckled, and with Teyla and Hengar, followed after with weapons at the ready. 

Carson, who had arrived with Elizabeth, looked dubiously at the gateway but Broc simply shuffled forward and Carson followed his badger-daemon through. Rodney and Stella went next, still grumbling to each other. 

Elizabeth straightened up from where she had been crouched down next to Bealdor. Dreo draped herself in her favourite position around her shoulders. 

// They certainly do have a knack for getting themselves into trouble, our boys, don’t they? //

Her brush swished delicately and her green eyes twinkled with mirth and fondness. 

\\\ They are not our boys, but yes they do manage to get into scrapes more than they have any right to! \\\ 

\\\ We’ll have to be more persuasive about keeping them in line then... \\\

They stepped through the portal. 

\\\ Oh, and they are our boys! \\\ 

-

Teer had been hitting on him since he’d first ended up in the village after the ‘Beast’ had attacked. He had to admit she was attractive but the whole prophesying thing about how they were meant to meet and he was meant to help them ascend had kinda weirded him out. He might have been swayed by her spiel if he hadn’t known that his people were coming for him. 

And if he hadn’t been feeling his daemon’s response to Elizabeth’s arrival at the portal.  
For the last week. 

John sighed. 

His relationship with Elizabeth was complicated. They should have just been colleagues, co-leaders, maybe even close friends. And while John tried to keep things on that level, Bealdor refused. He was forever flirting with Dreoides, always closer than two daemons who were ostensibly friends should be. And far far too protective of her and Elizabeth. 

Since he had nothing but time here John could be honest and admit that he felt the same way. 

He couldn’t bring himself to name what it was he felt. 

Not that it mattered really: Bealdor was thinking it over and over as Dreoides nuzzled his neck and cooed words of comfort in his ear. 

-

John was running for the gateway. Teer had told him his team were close to finding a way through to him but would be attacked by the monster. He had to warn his people. 

The shock hit him like a freight train and he stumbled to the ground. 

He heard a howl of happiness and the next thing he knew he was flat on his back with an oversized, shaggy, black wolf on top of him and laughing with joy. 

Bealdor. His daemon. 

John felt whole for the first time in six months. Caught up in the moment, he laughed and rough-housed with his daemon for a few minutes before catching sight of his team approaching. 

Regaining his footing, he made his way towards his team and Elizabeth. 

God, but her smile was like the sun... He had missed it fiercely these last six months. 

And Elizabeth seemed rather interested in his new look too..

Bealdor of course, couldn’t resist, \\\ She can pet my fur any time she likes... \\\

“First thing to go when we get back!”

\- 

Fear monster defeated. Check. 

Kooky wannabe Ancients ascended. Check. 

No ZPM. Again. Check. 

John collapsed onto his bed and looked around the room he had left six months and three hours ago. 

\\\ At least you have me back \\\

“Never wander off again!” 

His daemon growled indignantly, and began to instruct him on exactly how bad his sense of direction was without him. John smiled, happy to finally be home.


	7. New Enemies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Atlantis encounters Asuras

The first reaction Elizabeth and SGA-1 had on stepping through the gate was confusion - their daemons alert and curious - had they just stepped through the gate and ended up back in Atlantis?

This city was so much larger though, and seemed to stretch towards the horizon in all directions. Elizabeth felt a shiver run through her; it also felt just a little inhuman. Soulless.

“Whoever these people are, they would make formidable allies against the Wraith,” Teyla voiced what they were all thinking. Hengar purred in satisfaction at the thought and leapt gracefully from her arms to explore a little nearby - only to find himself pounced on by Willa, the ferret pinning his tail to the ground. “Or formidable enemies...” Ronan suggested in his usual laconic style. But his uneasiness and caution were betrayed by his ferret-daemon.

John glanced to Baeldor - they shared Ronan and Willa’s unease - things had a habit of going sideways for them, and with Elizabeth and Dreo along for the ride... John had to tamp down on Baeldor’s over protective instincts towards them.  
Elizabeth squared her shoulders and moved forward, “Let’s go greet the locals.” Dreoides in apparent owl form glided ahead in the direction of the central spires and the team followed.

And then the locals appeared.

The recoil was instantaneous and instictive, but it took a split second for them to realize what was so abhorrently, fundamentally with these people: They had no daemons.

John and Ronan reached for their weapons, Rodney gasped and began to babble. Elizabeth and Teyla barely kept their diplomatic expressions. The daemons seemed to shudder collectively and press closer to their humans.

These people walked and talked but they had no souls.

Elizabeth struggled for composure, trying to swallow down the bile rising in her throat - it was like looking at reanimated corpses. How could they be alive?  
She placed a gentle touch to John’s arm to ask him to stand down. His gun lowered a fraction. “Hello! We are explorers seeking new allies and trading partners. We mean no harm to your people.” There. That was diplomatic enough.

Elizabeth searched her memory for any SGC mission reports dealing with encounters with daemonless people and could think of only two plausible theories. SG-1 had discovered alternate universes where alternate versions of themselves had had their daemons on the inside. But how would such beings have made their way to this reality?  
The other option was far more sinister. They were Replicators.

One of the daemonless creatures stepped forward, while the others fanned out behind it threateningly.

“Welcome to Asuras.”

—

// We need to leave this place now! 

Dreoides was on the verge of making a dash for the ‘gate and dragging her human with her. Elizabeth stood her ground, keeping her game face on. She glanced at John and knew he was thinking the same thing. Escape.

The team exchanged signals and in unison made a break for the ‘gate. The Asurans moved at inhuman speed and cut off their retreat, encircling them, and corralling the daemons close to their people. Baeldor snarled and snapped while Willa and Hengar tried to slip past. A shriek filled the air as Willa was grabbed by her neck and dangled by an outstretched Asuran arm. Ronan turned faint and swayed on his feet. The fight went out of them as the other daemons huddled closer. Baeldor placed himself between Elizabeth and the enemy.

Another group of Asurans approached, and one stepped forward. He appeared to be their leader and Elizabeth switched into negotiator mode.

“We have no desire to harm you or to interfere with your people or society. We simply wish to leave.”

The Replicator’s expression was truly inhuman.

“I am Oberoth. You are the descendants of the Alterans.”  
His cold eyes took in each daemon in turn.  
“You and your ... creatures ... will remain with us to answer for the crimes of our creators. ”

“Take them to the holding pens.”

-

Elizabeth watched as Ronan paced up and down the small cell. Willa skittered about and into the corners looking for a weakness in the energy barrier. Teyla, with Hengar curled tight to her chest, sat with her back against Elizabeth’s and she could feel the tension coiled in her outwardly calm form. It was now this planet’s night, they’d been here for more than four hours and were long overdue for their scheduled check-in. Lorne would be on his way with the cavalry soon.

“What are they going to do to us?” Hengar had jumped to Teyla’s shoulder and was looking around at the other daemons. So far, the Asurans had only cataloged their daemons and left them be.

“They’re going to see how far the can drag us from our humans,” said Baeldor, who naturally wasn’t too bothered for John’s sake but touched his nose to Dreoides’ nape comfortingly.

The other daemons glared at him, reminded again of his.. differences.

“Pinocchio...” said Elizabeth.

“... They want to be real little boys,” agreed John.

Ronan and Teyla were nonplussed, but it had clicked for Rodney. Stella let out a squawk and flapped around his head, “Of course, of course, the Dust!”

“Dust? I do not think cleanliness concerns them?” said Teyla.

“No, no, not dust, DUST!” Rodney was warming to his theme.

“Dust is the term for a subatomic particle that is associated with all lifeforms and artificial objects. It can be observed flowing through the space-time continuum and funneling onto daemons, like its gravitationally attracted to them - ”

“- He’s calling your daemons fat,” John couldn’t resist. Elizabeth rolled her eyes.

“As I was saying before the idiot savant interrupted - Dust coalesces” he smirked “around daemons, but only after they’ve settled into their final form. It has also been shown to retain a history of the interactions between an inanimate object and living beings, making the hack science of psychometry somewhat meaningful. Daemons are of Dust. And so then so are we.

But these Replicators don’t have daemons. They’re not really alive...”

He trailed off as John grabbed his arm and motioned him away from the doorway. John tensed, eyes on the entrance, as Baeldor cocked his head listening.

The door slid open and a Replicator entered quietly. He seemed nervous.

“I am Niam, I will take you to the stargate. You cannot stay here!”

“Why help us?” John’s tone was icy, Baeldor’s hackles raised.

The creature, Niam, looked at him with an oddly blank stare, as if accessing the answer.

“We do not all despise our Alteran creators. It is true that they abandoned us when it was decided that we were not useful in the war against the Wraith. And when we were found to have survived alone, they attempted to destroy us because we have no daemons. Our creators then Ascended to another plane of existence. Oberoth wishes to dissect your daemons to determine how they function. But there are some of us who wish to learn from you, to discover the secrets of Ascension and join our creators.”

John wasn’t buying it, but if it got them out of there then he’d run with it for now.

Niam moved swiftly to deactivate the cell’s containment field and beckoned them towards the doorway. “Quickly! We have only 7.4 minutes before the others discover that I have severed my connection to the collective.”

The Atlanteans followed quickly behind as he lead them through a maze of corridors back to the gate room while avoiding the other Asurans. As they reached the gate they broke into a dead run. Rodney headed for the DHD to dial Atlantis’ alpha site and avoid the Iris shield.

The gate swooshed open, and just as Elizabeth moved to it, the replicator grabbed her arm. “Please allow me to join you: You know the secrets of Ascension.”

Elizabeth felt a moment of panic as she tried and failed to free her arm.

“I’m sorry. but we don’t know how to Ascend. We can take you with us but you must let me go.”

Dreoides was flapping her owl wings now in the replicators face, scratching at him, but Niam had frozen. John moved to intervene.

With a sudden jerk, Niam came alive, his hands now wrapped around Elizabeth’s throat, squeezing.. Baeldor howled and pounced on the replicator, shoving him sideways while John pulled at his hands trying to loosen his hold. Roney and Teyla pulled Elizabeth backwards and away, falling back through the gate. John and Ronan fended off the now-crazed replicator and followed them through..

The gate shut down, and Rodney dialed out immediately to stop them dialing back in. John fought to catch his breath, and looked to Elizabeth, “You ok?”

Elizabeth gingerly touched her hand to her bruised throat,

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.”


	8. Daemonless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Real world

Elizabeth opened her eyes to a padded hospital room and the terrifying realization that Dreoides was gone.

She couldn’t remember how she’d gotten here, the last thing she remembered was working in her office... She tried desperately to reach out along the connection to her daemon but she couldn’t feel her anywhere, could feel nothing but numbness. Dreoides had never been more than 20ft from her in their entire lives. And now she felt distant, nebulous, her presence nowhere and yet at once maddeningly close by. 

Rousing herself, she banged on the door to get someone’s attention but when they arrived she wished they hadn’t.  
Worse perhaps that losing her own daemon was the realisation that none of the staff, not the orderlies, nor the nurses, nor the doctors had a daemon either. And they didn’t even know that they were missing. 

\- 

Dr. Fletcher had explained that she had been in a car accident after a particularly harrowing negotiation for the U.N.. The trauma had caused a nervous breakdown. Atlantis and her life there were just figments of her damaged pysche. He couldn’t explain how her delusion about daemons had come about, but he was fascinated by the ‘depth of world building in her fantasy’. He kept asking her questions about daemons; what it meant to have one, how they interacted, what they felt in common. All the while denying that they could possibly exist.

Elizabeth knew that this was all wrong. She couldn’t have made it all up. She took to telling Dr Fletcher wildly inaccurate fibs about daemons in the hopes of catching him out. 

They told her that if she continued to improve that she would be allowed to go home. On the morning she left, the nurse presented her with a bedraggled stuffed owl that she claimed was Elizabeth’s childhood toy. She had apparently been calling it her daemon.  
It was all so wrong: That wasn’t even Dreoides favoured form. The world was all wrong but she couldn’t prove it to them. She stopped taking her meds. 

There was a wolf. He was howling at her. No not at her. To her. 

A shadowy form haunted her. It should have terrified her but it felt more real that this world. It was John. John and Baeldor.  
Calling to her, drawing her to them. As if reality were just out of reach. 

The fake people around her wanted her to forget her daemon. To make her believe that she didn’t possess a daemon. That she was soulless. 

Just like them.  
They wanted to tear her apart.  
She was running through the SGC desperate to reach the gateroom. And freedom. She could hear John calling to her, Baeldor howling for her to wake up.  
And Dreo! 

Her beloved daemon was out there too. All she had to do was make it to the gate... 

She knew now. She understood. 

The Replicators were in her head. They were trying to assimilate her by breaking her link with Dreoides. To make her soulless just like them. 

She would not let them.  
The Replicators were surrounding her. Niam stood in her way. Oberoth. She stepped right through them and through the stargate.  
Elizabeth opened her eyes.


	9. Together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Real world post ep

// Sshhh, it’s ok, this is real, I’m here... //

Elizabeth came back to the present with a start to find her hand was buried tightly in Dreoides russet fur almost to the point of pain. She was curled up on the sofa in her quarters with her daemon snuggled warmly against her chest. She made a conscious effort to loosen her death grip on Dreo and the little vixen shifted into her favourite monkey form to pull the edges of their blanket more closely around her shoulders.

“We’re safe now, we’re together, they’ll never pull us apart,” she cooed.

Tears sprang to Elizabeth’s eyes that she tried to swallow down for her daemons sake. The nanites had been deactivated but she still felt the cold of the Replicator induced world, the false reality without the stargate and where her Dreo was nothing more than an old stuffed toy.

They hadn’t been able to get her form right, making her an scraggly stuffed barn owl - the form she’d taken on the Asuran homeworld.

She had fought them, tried to hold on to reality and the connection she had with Dreo. But the horror of it; they had been trying to sever them. Intercision. She’d read horrific UN reports on various cases throughout the world but never imagined she’d face it herself.

They had been trying to make her soulless, just like them. They both hated and feared the Ancients, both wanting to destroy their descendants and to become them. To Ascend. But they never could, not without a daemon. If it hadn’t been for John and Baeldor...

Compulsively Elizabeth pulled Dreo even closer, crushing her to herself to feel her warmth. She knew that this was real, that she was awake, but she just couldn’t stop reflexively looking for the glitches that would tell her that this was just another constructed reality in her head.

// It’ll get easier//

Dreo rested her head against her neck for a moment before perking up her ears and looking to the door. Baeldor and John were just outside. Elizabeth wondered distractedly if they would knock or were only there to hover.

Then Dreoides bolted for the door causing it to open on John’s startled expression, his hand raised poised to knock. Elizabeth found she could muster up a small smile at the look on his face as her daemon barreled into his, grabbing the wolf-daemon by the scruff of his neck and trotting backwards to pull them into her quarters.

John spared Baeldor a glance, then focused his attention on Elizabeth. He’d needed to see her to reassure himself as much as her that she was alive. He had come so close to losing her.

“Brought you some of Atlantis finest hot cocoa. With extra marshmallows.”

He settled on the sofa beside her, not quite touching, and handed her the mug. Their fingertips brushed and he felt the familiar spark run through him.

The contact felt real but she was still so terrified that the nanites would take control and twist everything, take him away from her. Suddenly all Elizabeth wanted to do was to bury herself in John’s arms and stay there.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay, it’s okay..”

John rarely initiated physical contact, he was hesitant to overstep the boundaries they’d constructed between them, but right now they both needed this. He gently loosened the blanket,  
taking it from her shoulders and opened his arms to her. Elizabeth curled up against him and he wrapped the blanket back around them both. They breathed one another in.  
Their daemons curled up together on the floor at their feet, whispering to one another.

“Talk to me about it?”

Elizabeth sipped at the sweet chocolate and began to speak. 

-

John’s chest was a sold warmth under her cheek as she let him support her weight, his arms wrapped securely around her. They had been sitting quietly for some time now.

She had spoken until she ran out of words. Slowly, Elizabeth could feel her equilibrium return. Her death grip on Dreo had become a soft caress, and she had settled into her side. Baeldor had also moved himself to curl up on the couch beside John. Occasionally the two still whispered quietly to one another. Time drifted by.

Dreoides stretched her paws and shared a sly grin with Baeldor. “Hmmmm,” her green eyes twinkled, “I think it’s getting late. Time for bed.”

John stirred himself to leave but Dreoides reached out her paw and gently placed it on his thigh. He froze - she wasn’t touching his skin, but even through the layers of cloth he could feel her.

Elizabeth’s breathing became uneven but she remained still, only watching her daemon with rapt attention. John had never touched another person’s daemon before. It was too taboo, too intimate. He’d never felt the desire to. But lately he’d caught himself thinking about it, wondering how it would feel if he did.. if she did..

Ever so slowly, John reached out with his fingertips and tenderly brushed along Dreo’s ear. Elizabeth whimpered, a shudder passing through her. He pulled her more tightly against him, rested his forehead against hers and allowed his hand to sink deep into the vixen-daemon’s fur. It was exquisite.

Dreoides crawled fully into his lap and Baeldor moved around him. Stars exploded behind his eyelids as Elizabeth ran her fingers along the wolf’s forehead.

Elizabeth had never felt like this before, she and Dreo had always hidden themselves from others. Afraid to be discovered, to allow anyone close. Until John and Baeldor.  
The joy and bliss she felt now was indescribable.  
The whole universe narrowed down to just the four of them and she knew she was home.

-

Elizabeth woke to find herself wrapped in John’s arms. Dreo was on the opposite side of the bed, half across John. Baeldor was stretched along her back, keeping her safe and warm.  
After everything she’d just gone through, she thought she ought to feel trapped but she had never felt safer or happier.

As for last night.. They had been dancing around their feelings for one another since the day they met. She wasn’t sure what it had been about this particular brush with death that had lead them to cross the line. Perhaps it was just time. 

She nuzzled John’s chest and ran her fingers along Baeldor’s side, eliciting a low rumble from the wolf-daemon as he gazed at her with adoring blue eyes. John stirred and kissed her forehead, and Dreoides whispered in his ear the words that Elizabeth couldn’t yet say aloud.


	10. Asuras

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The original scene in my head for this fic. 
> 
> End of season 4 happens as in canon, but things will change from here.

“Go!”

For one moment John was frozen in time. Torn. Staring at Elizabeth. 

Then all hell broke loose.   
Ronan dragged him away as he screamed out for her.   
His last glimpse was of her despairing but resolute face as the damned Asurans surrounded her. 

Nothing felt real. 

This couldn’t happen. 

They didn’t leave their people behind. 

He couldn’t leave Elizabeth behind. 

John was on autopilot as he flew the Jumper away from Asuras. Away from Elizabeth.   
It wasn’t until the got back to the city - Until he’d flown Atlantis to a new planet. One she didn’t know. One she could never find - that he realised. 

He may have torn himself away from Elizabeth, but she had kept his soul. 

Baeldor, his beloved daemon, had remained on Asuras with her.


	11. Capture

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elizabeth on Asuras

Elizabeth’s heart broke as John was pulled from her sight and the Asurans closed in. 

She had lost her control over Oberoth and the other replicators, but she could still sense the collective. John and the others were almost free and the Asuran’s were furious. 

Terror welled up, closing her throat so she could barely breathe. Dreoides had been concealing herself as a tiny lizard, but now she shrank down into the smallest form she could possibly manage - a tiny mite - and hid against her skin.  
She knew what the Asuran’s wanted; what they each craved and despised in equal measure. 

A daemon.

And like maniacal children with a new clockwork toy, they would destroy her daemon to study the moving parts. 

Warmth at her side and a low growl pulled her from the moment of panic. Her hand instinctively reaching down to bury in warm dark fur… 

Baeldor!

The realisation that he was still here, still at her side, and not escaping with John and his team, made the world spin on its end. Her vision greyed as fear enveloped her. She grabbed for him, pulling Baeldor close to her body as if she could shield him, and by extension John, from harm. 

She couldn’t fathom what had gone wrong, why had he not followed John?

The Asurans grabbed her arms, yanking her to her feet again. Baeldor growled fiercely and tried to attack, but it was hopeless. She cried out to him to stop and he retreated to her side, snapping at those holding her arms, and placing himself between Elizabeth and Oberoth. 

Baeldor risked a glance up at her and in that instant she knew. 

She understood why he had stayed: A daemon’s form reflected their human’s true nature. Wolves were eternally loyal to their pack. 

And wolves mated for life. 

Oberoth stared at her with cold malice, and she could sense him at the edges of her connection to the collective, looking for a weakness. 

“Dr Weir. You will pay the price for your people’s crimes and for the crimes of your Ancestors.  
By assisting us with our experiments.” 

“You… and your… wolf-daemon.” 

They collared a struggling Baeldor with some kind of electronically controlled noose and dragged him along the corridor. The didn’t push her to follow so much as herd her along - expecting her to follow her daemon. 

Her daemon. 

They thought Baeldor was her daemon.  
And they were going to try to separate them. 

A bubble of almost hysterical laughter threatened to rise up inside her: They didn’t know about Dreoides. Or that Baeldor was truly John’s daemon and could wander as far from her as he pleased. 

Elizabeth straightened her spine and pretended to a courage she didn’t quite possess. The reality was they would probably die here. Her people would believe her to be a lost cause, given her active nanites. But there was a chance that they would attempt a rescue. 

// Just not for us.. //

\\\ For Baeldor. \\\ 

She had to keep him alive long enough for him to escape and reunite with John. 

And she would. 

Elizabeth couldn’t bear to believe otherwise.


	12. Asuras II

Elizabeth woke with a jolt from a dream of John and rescue to the stark white walls of her Asuran prison cell. Though to call it a cell was really a misnomer. It truly didn’t do justice to its meeting hall proportions. Or the fact that it was really a science lab: a large empty room with viewing windows through which she could view the Asuran scientists at their equipment, and filled with layer after layer of force fields that kept her confined in her ‘living quarters’ end but could be activated or deactivated by her captors to test the range of separation between human and daemon. They had left her here, never bothering to remove her vest or her RFID chip: she wasn’t a threat. 

A long time ago, Elizabeth thought, they may have actually conducted experiments here unethical as they would have been. But science didn’t motivate Oberoth, he only wanted to see her suffer. To inflict the maximum amount of physical and pyschological pain without killing her. The scientists may have been using her nannies to collect data but she was sure Oberoth just wanted to break her spirit with his mind games. 

And so Dreoides remained hidden and rarely risked speaking in her own voice, just a soft nebulous whisper in her mind.  
// We have to stay strong, find a way to escape, get Baeldor home.//  
Dreo and Baeldor had strengthened their bond over the last weeks and had now managed to communicate entirely telepathically, though Elizabeth still needed her daemon as go-between. 

Baeldor. Her John’s daemon. Her heart cried out to see him 20 feet away, curled up at the edge of a force field barrier. Sensing their emotions, he raised his head from his paws and tried for a smile.  
// John and the others are coming for us, they won’t abandon us here.//  
Elizabeth smiled weakly at him and sent her agreement through Dreo, but in their heart they knew that no help was coming. Not for them. The military had never much cared for her, she was a civilian annoyance who had become a civilian casualty. They wouldn’t risk it with her active nannies, that would be the excuse. Or that she was obviously already dead, why waste the valuable resources? But Baeldor.. Surely..  
He sensed their mood and whined, pawing at the force field that separated them.  
// Don’t give up! We will escape and make it home, you’ll see, John will come for us.//

Elizabeth looked around at her expansive cell. She and Baeldor were watched constantly. But Dreoides wasn’t. If she could escape their cell and make it to the control room.. Elizabeth shuddered and Dreo cried out in her mind at what they would have to do. It was unthinkable for them. But it might be the only way to save Baeldor, perhaps even themselves.  
They would have to Separate. 

Baeldor pricked up his ears as the shield separating them buzzed and dropped. Like a good daemon would, he ran to her and she clung to him. He was shivering cold after a night without human warmth, he was never away from John for so long. She wrapped herself around him.  
// I miss that idiot human of mine so much!//  
He rubbed his snout against her neck relishing her warmth as he would have done John’s.  
Elizabeth was his human now too. Dreo would just have to learn to share until they found wherever John had wandered off to. Dreo chuckled warmly in his mind and he felt he would do whatever it took to bring his girls home. 

Elizabeth straightened her spine as the first nameless Asuran arrived to begin todays experiments. She held on to Baeldor for as long as she dared, then forced Dreo to go to him. 

Both her daemons were dragged from her and it took everything in her not to scream. 

—

Her daemons were gone again. That was the only sure way Elizabeth had of telling the real world from the endless nanite induced nightmare worlds that Oberoth subjected her to.  
With a machines relentlessness, he was still trying to break her: the most common theme to all his games was her people coming to rescue her only to abandon her again at the last moment. She refused to play along, refused to let it show how much it hurt to see their familiar faces sneering at her and to hear their missed voices telling her they didn’t care. She knew it wasn’t real, but they still hadn’t come. 

Oberoth appeared before her, obviously annoyed at his lack of success. He seemed to believe that if he could crack her then, like a computer, all her secrets would be revealed.  
“I don’t know the secrets of Ascension - I’m not an Ancient - so you can play all the games you want. It just makes you look foolish.”  
Elizabeth couldn’t resist needling Oberoth. She was well aware that the rest of the collective were following their interactions. Oberoth had thought to consolidate power over the factions within the Asurans by displaying his control over her to the rest. Niam’s group may have been the most extreme in their opposition but they weren’t alone. Her continued resistance had caused divisions among those factions to grow.  
“You are a Descendant of our creators and you will pay for their crimes. But first you will divulge the methodology of Ascension.”  
He was like a broken record.  
“Why do you believe me to be descended from the Ancients?”  
First Niam and now Oberoth had described her as an Ancient. But she didn’t possess the ATA gene. And yet Dreoides could ‘hear’ Ancient technology, and she was female..  
Perhaps at the very least she could get some answers before they killed her.  
“We have records of the genetic patterns of our creator’s species and well as those of the lesser humans they seeded this galaxy with.”  
“Your physiology and genetic structure are a match to those you call Alterans.”  
Elizabeth was stunned for a moment. This was news. Well, in for a penny…  
“But I can’t activate Ancient technology - I don’t have the ATA gene.”  
It was a risk to divulge information to an enemy. But these ones could literally get inside her head so she felt it was a calculated risk.  
Oberoth looked her over critically, before smiling condescendingly.  
“Then we share one thing in common, Dr. Weir: we were both betrayed by the Ancients.”  
He was willing to talk, the gamble had paid off. She didn’t have to feign interest and he continued.

“Long ago, the Alteran lived peacefully together as one people spread over many galaxies, united by their shared heritage and their stargates. As their civilization grew old and began to die many different ideologies emerged as to how they should face their imminent demise. Some chose to simply memorialize themselves and die.” These ones seemed to please him.  
“Others chose to Ascend.” These did not.  
“Those that followed the path of Ascension disagreed on how their technological legacy should be bequeathed to their descendants and these new weaker humans. We know little of their quibbling, only that the Ancients won and banished their fellows from Pegasus. And seemingly from the Home Galaxy also…“  
Damn it, she’d given him more information on Earth than she had realized.  
“They then placed a ‘lock’ on their technology so that only those with the correct key - this ATA gene you mentioned - could control it. Thus preventing their enemies from regaining power over the lesser species.”

“It would appear, my dear Dr Weir, that you are of the banished group. How intruiging. We will study your ability to interface with Alteran technologies another time. For now, I think we should return to our entertainments.”

—

Baeldor was trapped between two force fields 5 meters from Elizabeth. He kept his head on his paws, facing her, Dreoides was hidden in the fur at his left era, still a tiny mite. She hadn’t changed form since they had been captured and it was beginning to take a toll on her. She was beginning to feel small and lost and insecure. And she was so far from her Bethan!  
// S’Okay, Dreo, I’m here with you//  
Baeldor could >feel< her, hear her as if she were John, or a part of himself. It had been gradually coming on since that night after the nanite hell, the first time they’d touched. 

It had been indescribably good then, to be touched by Lizabeth. Now John was.. absent.. and it felt different. Like Lizabeth was his human, like he belonged to her. He longed for her warmth like he longed for John’s. But John was gone now, and Baeldor couldn’t feel him, had no idea where he was or what he was doing. Or if he missed him.  
// Of course he misses you. We’ll get you back to him.//  
The pain of separation had been cruel beyond telling but being with Baeldor made it bearable. When she was with him she didn’t feel so far away from Bethan.  
But soon she’d have to go it alone.  
// When the time is right I’m going to have to get out of this cell, deactivate the force fields, and find a way out.//  
// You will. You can handle this. I have faith in you.//  
//Easy for you to say, you get to stay with Bethan!//  
Baeldor smiled at that. If she was teasing him the Dreo would be alright. His ears twitched as the Asurans approached. The force field dropped and he dashed two Lizabeth and her welcoming warmth. Careful to remain hidden, Dreoides crawled slowly back to her human’s heart.


	13. Experiments

John woke to the same feeling of confused, numb, emptiness that had dogged his dreams. He reflexively reached out for Baeldor only to realise once again that he wasn’t there. The hollowness increased. 

He’d been kept in the infirmary’s isolation unit since returning from Asuras. The room’s last occupant had been Elizabeth. He wished that made him feel closer to her but it really didn’t. He felt like a rat in a cage in here. At first he had thought that they were trying to help him but the medicine they gave him just made it difficult to think. He was pretty sure Dr Keller was more interested in writing a paper on him. He wondered if she was actually with the Magisterium’s CCD. Wouldn’t surprise him. They liked to study intercession after all.. 

Was that what had happened to him? Had Baeldor gone so far away from him that the bond between them had finally snapped? 

No one would tell him how the plans to rescue Lizabeth and their daemons were going. He’d tried to argue with his team to let him go with them but they insisted he stay where he was. And he couldn’t find it within himself to go against them. He was becoming aware of missing some drive or determination or independence.. Something. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it. They told him to do things and he just… did them. He was sure he hadn’t always been like this, but he couldn’t remember how to be otherwise. 

He sat up on the infirmary bed and tried to think. He needed to rescue Lizabeth and their daemons. Yes. Good.  
He swung his legs over the side of the bed. He needed to get up and get dressed and report for duty. He stood up.  
Then he could join the search teams out looking for them. He was sure the search was already underway. Maybe they would find them soon. That would be good.  
He made it to the door. It wouldn’t open at first but he remembered now that he was good with Ancient tech. He would be useful in the search and rescue op.  
He made his way to his quarters and managed to ready himself for the day. 

Then the doctor turned up with Ronan and some marines to take him back to the infirmary. 

He couldn’t quite manage a protest. 

—

Elizabeth had been spending her days quietly exploring at the edges of the Asuran collective. She could sift through the mundane communiques and systems updates and look deeper at the personal traffic between individual replicators. That’s how she’d found Niam’s people. 

For the last few weeks now she’d been communicating with them. Trying to teach them what little she herself had learned of Ascension. And in so doing she had begun to understand it herself. 

She had also been trying to operate Ancient technology. Oberoth had approved, Alteran technology was infused with Dust and so required someone with a daemon to interface with it properly.

Niam’s group had taught her more about the feud between the Ancients and their ideological opponents - lead by the Ori. Well, she’d never believed she was on the side of the angels. Hadn’t quite thought she was of the Devil’s party… 

Slowly, with Baeldor’s help, Dreo was able to hear the tech better and could understand what was being broadcast. She just couldn’t activate it yet. The Asurans’ believed that the ATA gene was an access code that could be bypassed with a little time and perservance. They had both in abundance. Elizabeth held the small device in her hand.  
//Concentrate. Listen to what its saying. Focus just on this.// Baeldor repeated.  
// I hear it, I hear it! It’s a medical scanner.// Dreo was inordinately pleased with herself.  
//OK, now. Tell it to activate.//  
//I’m trying..//  
There was a brief flickering.  
Oberoth swept into her cell with the scientists in tow.

“Dr Weir. Time for another experiment.” 

The lead Asuran scientist, Lunan, approached and placed a small high tech syringe to her neck. As she watched, the clear vial began to fill with a silvery liquid.  
And then she felt it.  
They were extracting her nanites. 

—

Dreoides couldn’t help the panic trembling her small form.  
// She won’t wake! //  
Baeldor whined and nudged Elizabeth’s face. She’d been out cold for nine hours now and the daemons were terrified that they’d removed too many nanites and that she would suffer irreparable brain damage like the doctor had said. 

The force fields hum died as Lunan returned. His complete unconcern for his subject was apparent as he tilted her head to administer an injection. Baeldor snapped at his hand on Dreo’s behalf. But their focus shifted quickly to Elizabeth as she finally came around and groggily tried to push herself upwards.  
“Good. You are fit to participate in the next phase of the experiment.”  
Elizabeth could barely focus, but she reached out to her daemons and felt their minds brush hers.  
Then she searched for the collective.  
For a moment nothing, and then, there it was. She had almost hoped that they had removed all of the nanites. But that would mean giving up on controlling her.  
The buzzing of Lunan’s scanner was making her headache worse.  
“The damage to your cerebral cortex appears to have been successfully corrected by the nanites, and functioning is now maintained by biological cells. The remaining nanites are not required to maintain synaptic stability. We can procede.”  
Lunan was reporting to the other Asurans who were watching, but she couldn’t focus on them.  
Successfully corrected… She was thinking without the nanites. They were still there in her bloodstream but they were no longer keeping her alive. 

// We can go home!!//  
Dreo’s laughter tinkled through her accompanied by Baeldor’s deeper howls.  
// They’ll come for us! They will! We don’t leave our people behind. And now we don’t have to worry. We can all go home. //

Elizabeth didn’t believe that they would come for her.  
But now she knew she could escape. 

“Proceeding with the experiment.”

—  
Baeldor snarled and snapped but he was still dragged away by Lunan and his laces with ease.  
He memorized the route and added it to his mental map of the Asuran city. It’d be useful when the rescue came. It was circuitous and if he hadn’t been keeping track he might have believed they’d doubled back on themselves. 

The replicators stopped outside a lab that looked identical to his own. The door was opened and he was shoved inside, slamming shut behind him. 

“Baeldor!” 

That voice. 

He spun around to see Elizabeth standing there. Dressed in a set of old style BDUs.  
Just what the hell was this fresh madness? 

“My Baeldor! I’m so happy to see you, I’ve missed you so much!”  
The Replicator gushed at him. As if he were really her birth daemon. A sardonic grin spread over his muzzle. 

“Well hello there! Have we met? You know, you look an awful lot like my human!”  
It’s simulacrum of a face fell, It looked left to where the other Replicators were gather in the observation room, frightened. Baeldor couldn’t find it within himself to care. He wanted to be with his girls. They motioned to it to try again. 

“Baeldor, it’s me. Elizabeth. You’re my daemon, don’t you remember?”

He hated that it was wearing his Lizabeth’s face.  
“No. You’re not. No. I’m not. No. I’ve never seen you before because you’re not a real girl, Repli-thing.” It feigned distress.  
“Baeldor, please! You’re right, I’m not the original Elizabeth but…” It glanced again at the others, “She’s dead. You’re still here because you belong to me now. You’re my daemon and I’ll take good care of you, I promise.” 

It was lying, it was definitely wrong. They hadn’t. He still howled.  
The thing came closer and tried to pat his head with it cold dead hand, he flinched and backed away.  
It kept it up for five hours before Lunan reappeared to drag him out and back to his cell.  
He bounded to Lizabeth, felt Dreo hum in his mind. Warm and alive.  
He wondered vaguely what they would do with the uncanny valley reject. Then decided he didn’t care and snuggled closer to Lizabeth’s warmth.


	14. Distractions

John had been back on active duty for a few months now, but no rescue mission was on the cards. Carter had told him that they had done all they could while he’d been out of commission. He didn’t quite believe her. But he didn’t know what to do or where to start looking. The lack of Baeldor was a constant numbness in his soul that he couldn’t feel anything through. Except the pain of losing the three of them. 

Everyone on Atlantis looked at him with barely disguised disgust. He was abhorrent to them, no matter that the tried to hide it behind a veneer of sympathy and support. He had no daemon. It was a wrongness they could not ignore. He was as bad as a Wraith worshipper or a damned Asuran to them. No amount of proof that he was the real him could completely overcome the instinctive recoil when he walked into a room. 

When they received the transmission from Major Jordan on M34-227 he’d hoped for news. He hadn’t expected this. Duplicates. Replicators who looked just like him and his team. And Elizabeth. God, it hurt. It hurt so much to see her likeness standing there, to hear her voice when it wasn’t real. 

They had no daemons, that had kinda given the game away on the Asuran’s little experiment, they figured pretty quickly that they couldn’t have all survived intercision. Only problem was that now his people were looking between him and Repli-him and weren’t sure who was who. It would be farcical if it wasn’t all so soul destroying. 

He ignored them all as they discussed science and focused on the Replicator Elizabeth. He had a thousand questions but only one really mattered:  
“Is she alive?”  
“I’m sorry, John.”  
His chest constricted. He could feel his heart shattering all over again. He’d hoped. He’d let himself believe they would find her. That he could fix the mess his life had become.  
“And Baeldor?”  
He wasn’t sure what he felt about the fate of his daemon now. If he’d died then surely he would have too, even if they were severed. He had thought his daemon would have gone down fighting to protect Elizabeth and Dreoides. The Replicator looked at him quizzically:  
“Baeldor turned to Dust when Elizabeth died, I suppose. They tried to give him to me, to keep him alive, but he couldn’t bond to me. So they killed them both.”

John stared at her for a long moment. The Replicator thought that Baeldor was Elizabeth’s daemon. He almost wanted to laugh: if she believed that then she’d believe anything. She didn’t know anything about Elizabeth or their daemons. So until he had proof, they were still alive. And there was still hope. 

— 

\\\ We need to plan our escape. \\\

Once the decision had been made, Elizabeth had found her daemon’s courage and her own strength returning. Baeldor’s optimism appeared indefatigable. She had stepped up her efforts in recent weeks to sow dissent among the ranks of the Asurans and to build her standing with Niam’s group. They sought her out in secret in the dark corners of the replicator neural web to listen to her discuss her political and philosophical ideas. They were studying meditation as a means of accessing a higher plane of consciousness. She liked to think she was offering them the proverbial apple, and that she might yet teach them some morality, right and wrong. And just why killing her would be a terrible idea.  
Baeldor had been left with her for the most part. No more replicas had tried to ‘steal’ him away from her. Lunan still performed some separation experiments but they seemed to be more on Oberoth’s orders and designed to inflict pain rather than study their range. 

Which was ironic because right now Dreoides was the furthest she had ever been from her beloved Bethan. She had hitched a ride behind Baeldor’s ear to the furthest extent of their cell, and then made her way to the corridor outside. From there she had worked her way into an access panel and was now slowly but steadily making her way through the conduit to the control panels in the observation room. 

Slowly. Very slowly. It was cold and lonely without her human. She was so small, but they couldn’t risk a larger form or the Asuran sensors would detect her and then the jig would be up. It was a long way in such a small form, but she would get there. Then she would lower the force field, find the gate and they would run.  
Dreoides continued slowly forward. 

—

// Shit, shit, shit, this is not good! //  
Baeldor was whining in her head. Oberoth was coming. He fury was palpable across the Asuran collective’s web. And all she’d done was start a little revolution. 

Niam’s group and a few other rebellious factions had gone up against Oberoth and challenged him for authority over the collective. Only it wasn’t going so well. They were losing ground and planning their escape. And they were going to take her with them. 

Oberoth had already isolated many of the dissidents and reprogrammed them. Others were deleting evidence of their allegiances in the system and going underground.

And now Oberoth was on his way to deal with her. 

Dreo was only a few meters away from the observation room but she was trapped in the conduits and couldn’t assume a larger form without killing them both. Baeldor whined again and took up a defensive stance between her and the cell door. It wouldn’t matter. 

Oberoth seemed to surge into the space like a tsunami, Lunan trailing in his wake. Baeldor was knocked to the side almost as an afterthought. Elizabeth felt strangely calm. They were going to die, she and Dreo. She wished she could hold her daemon close to her as they died. She wished she and John could have grown old together. She wished Baeldor would run, but even now he wouldn’t leave her. Especially now. She’d failed him and John. He wouldn’t run. 

She felt Oberoth’s deathly cold fingers jam into her forehead and her world lit on fire. It felt like tiny knives are slicing through every cell in her body. Dreo screamed. Everything went black. 

—

She could see a light. Dreo was softly whispering in her mind. There was a warm weight on her chest that made her feel safe. This was not how Elizabeth had imagined the afterlife. 

// That would be because we’re not dead yet Bethan. // 

Elizabeth struggled to open her eyes. Everywhere hurt like hell. Baeldor nuzzled her face and nudged her into a sitting position.  
// How does she look?//  
// Beautiful as always of course! //  
Elizabeth just managed to quirk her lips into a smile. She felt like death warmed up. Or like she’d been hit by a Mac truck.  
// And then revered over..// Baeldor sniggered and then had the grace to look guilty.  
"They almost killed you that time. Lizabeth. You’ve been out for almost 15 hours now.”  
“No ones come to check on you. I think they’ve abandoned us here.”  
// I’m almost to the control room, another few hours, then we escape and go home! // 

“Then I just need to find the remnants of Niam’s group so they can take us with them when they leave. They still had some ships before…”

Elizabeth slowly trailed off as she realized that she could no longer hear the collective. The constant buzz was gone. And along with it was the omnipresent sense of the nanites in her own cells. They were gone. 

The nanites were gone. 

For one moment Elizabeth was utterly elated. 

And then she understood. Oberoth had removed all her nanites and left her here to die. Without her nanites she couldn’t interface with their systems to escape. Or to contact the rebels. They would think she was dead. They would leave her behind, probably already had in fact. And she was now vulnerable to injury again without the nanites to keep her alive. 

// Well then. We really will just have to make it on our own. //  
Baeldor’s plan to escape on their own was back in play. 

Right. Easy. Elizabeth pushed herself slowly to her feet, swaying precariously and leaning heavily on Baeldor for support. Escape from Asuras with the whole collective to hunt her down. No problem. 

// We’re just going to need a distraction… //


	15. Brave New World

The Daeldelus slipped quietly out of hyperspace towards Asuras. John stared out as the star field sweeping past resolved itself into the crescent of the replicator homeworld, hoping that as they approached the planet he might be able to sense Baeldor.  
Rodney, cradling Stella close as if he might steal her, had promised to scan the surface for any trace of Elizabeth or their daemons before the attack was set in motion. Surely she would still register as human even if the nanites had taken control. The science teams hadn’t been sure. The daemons dust could show up on the scans. It would be very faint, hard to detect, interference.. No one held out any hope but him. He couldn’t feel anything.. 

The Fran weapon activated. He refused to think of it as a person. Below them all hell broke loose on the surface as the replicators returned to their metallic base form and began to coalesce. 

John tried again to reach out to Baeldor - a fleeting glimpse of Asuran corridors and a bright flash of red in a vixen’s brush.. “They’re down there, they’re alive! Can you lock on to them beam them up??” He felt woozy, in two places at once. “I can take a shuttle..” Ronan’s hand clamped down on his shoulder, steadying him. The other’s looked at him with pity and contempt: “The scans show no human life signs on the surface and no evidence of Dust from daemons anywhere.” Rodney sounded dejected.  
“Status of the weapon!?” Caldwell barked out and the bridge’s focus shifted to the attack.  
“They’re there Rodney, scan again!” He could feel them, he was sure, at the edges of his consciousness. But Rodney wasn’t listening, his focus on the deployment of the Fran weapon. Ronan’s hand was now clamped on his arm. Teyla moved to block his view, a placating look on her face, “It is expected that you would miss them and imagine they were still with us..” John began to struggle. They were wrong, they had to be. He could sense them, they were still alive. He had to save them. He struggled against Ronan’s grip. The hypodermic caught him by surprise. 

—

“Well. This is one Hell of a distraction.” 

The world was quite literally tearing itself apart at the seams. Dreoides burst out of the conduit into a now open section and stretched her wings for the first time in forever, flying as a kite the remaining distance to the control room. Asurans were running pell mell in every direction, the science team fleeing, too confused to care about Dreoides. She landed on the console, switching to her monkey form, ducking around Lunan as he fled, and started searching for the right controls to free Bethan and Baeldor from their cell. All she needed to do was drop the force fields. And find a map. And a ship. And contact Niam’s people.. Her head swam a little trying to read the Ancient dialect on the console.  
\\\ Dreo! Focus! Stay calm. Upper left quadrant.\\\ There it was. She tapped a few commands and the force fields were gone. Nothing else obvious except an evacuation order through the gate.. Four floors up and across to the next city tower. She shared the information with the others: // I have a map to the Gate! //

Elizabeth and Baeldor ran as fast as she could managed to the cell’s entrance, and then she was out. It was disorientating after so long to see something other than her four walls. She couldn’t tell which way to go, especially as the ground became unstable beneath her feet. “This way.” Baeldor was off, immediately getting his bearings, she kept a tight grip on his fur and let him lead the way. She could see Dreo in her minds eye and knew she was following. They ran. A flash of russet fur and she had Dreo back by her side. There was no time for a reunion but she felt stronger with her daemon close. 

The city seemed an endless maze of corridors and staircases. The whole structure of the city was collapsing around them, causing them to detour and double back to avoid the rubble. Then they broke out into open air. The secondary Stargate was just across the plaza at the base of the opposite tower. If they could just reach it.. The ground was heaving. Replicators were trying to reach the gate but were being dragged away by some force other than gravity, collapsing into block form.. Everything was collapsing into blocks.. Before their eyes the tower disintegrated with a deafening roar taking half the plaza, and the Stargate, with it as it dissolved into a stream of nanites and was sucked into a swirling maelstrom that raged across the eastern horizon. 

“Oh my God.” 

The vortex was tearing the nanites apart and sucking them into itself, becoming denser and denser, like a black hole, pulling the planet apart along with the replicators. 

It was at once both dreadful and wonderful. 

Her people had found a way to destroy the Replicators once and for all.  
And they were killing her along with them.

If only they could find a way to contact them - tell them she had Baeldor, that her nanites were gone. // They didn’t take our radio… // Baeldor nuzzled at her Flac vest as he pushed her back into whatever little shelter their tower could afford. Dreo was already opening her pocket where the radio was stored before she could process what they were thinking, her little monkey paws reaching in to pull it out, activating it, holding it up so she could speak…

“This is Elizabeth Weir to any Earth ship in range: I’m on Asuras, on the surface. I have Baeldor. The nanites are gone. Please, if you can hear me, I have Baeldor…”

Nothing. The static was loud over the sounds of a world tearing itself apart. 

“Can anyone hear me? Please!”

The daemons huddled closer as the last of the tower was torn away around them.

“John.”

There was a bright flash of light.

—

For one brief moment, as the transporter beam faded, Elizabeth believed that her people had heard her, that they had pulled off a desperate eleventh hour rescue and that she would look up and see John before her. 

But when she did look up it was obvious that she wasn’t on the Daedelus. The ship looked Ancient but lacked the Dust imbued in their tech. Asuran. Her heart dropped. Dreo, who had already shifted into a bright colourful butterfly in celebration, shrank back into her mite form in terror. Baeldor tensed, moved into a defensive stance. She could feel his bitter disappointment and for the first time his optimism flagging. She buried her hand in his fur in comfort. 

The were alone in what appeared to be crew quarters, sparsely furnished. With only a few disconcertingly familiar mementos on display. Someone had replicated her belongings. 

The door’s lock cycled and slid open. And there she was. Another replicator version of her. Baeldor had described to them the one he’d encountered, but seeing it for herself was something else entirely.  
RepliWeir entered cautiously, hands extended placatingly, her face a polite diplomatic mask. 

“I know how upsetting this must be for you, to realize that you’re not the real one…” 

Baeldor growled and she unconsciously reached to pull him closer to her, claiming him. Elizabeth was trying tofind an in, the right angle to get through to this machine that she was the real one while avoiding getting them killed. Dreo on the other hand was indignant and reaching the end of her tether. // We are the real ones. There’s only one of me and I know my Bethan! //

Elizabeth felt herself regaining her equilibirum. RepliWeir was reaching out to Baeldor, ironically enough in the same manner one would attract a neighbors pet dog.  
“Baeldor. Baeldor, come here,” she singsonged.  
His grin was almost feral. “If you add ‘good boy’ to the end of that I’m going to rip your plastic face right off - whether it looks like Lizabeth’s or not.”

The shift was subtle but immediate, as the base Asuran programming began to take over. RepliWeir was about to attack and they would lose. Elizabeth tugged Baeldor back to her, smiling reassuringly at the Asuran copy. “He’s just protective of me. We’ve been through so much together. He has been with me since we were captured, except when Oberoth was trying to separate us.”

“I’m the Real me.” 

Gently does it. “How can you be so sure?”

“Because my nanites are the originals. I’m the original. My nanites were encoded when I was first attacked by Niam. My human cells were replaced as the nanites replicated.” At least she was calm again but she was utterly convinced. And she didn’t look too happy to have a duplicate. 

Dreo fidgeted at her breast. // Tell her or I will. //  
// Uh-uh. Tactically speaking: A very bad move! //  
Baeldor was still shielding her, looking for an exit strategy. 

Elizabeth really looked at her copy: black leather, commanding presence. She’d escaped with Niam’s group, she realized. She was the one who’d been rescued after Oberoth removed all her original nanites to cut her off from the collective. “If you scan me you’ll see that I’m human, all my nanites were removed after the rebellion, even the originals that infected me. I’m telling you the truth.”  
“You’re an organic replicator then! My real physical body was destroyed by the nanites as they replicated…” Impasse. She was convinced she was real. And she would rather believe a lie than believe she’d been fooled. 

“Alright, look, you saved us from Asuras, and we’re truly grateful. So where do you want to go from here? I want to leave and return to Atlantis.”

“Oh you can feel free to leave anytime you like. But my daemon stays.”

And there it was, the reason she’d saved her. She needed a daemon to prove she was the Real Elizabeth Weir. 

RepliWeir reached out to pet Baeldor. He went for her hand. 

—

After their initial fraught meeting things had, if not precisely improved, at least settled into a familiar routine. 

When Baeldor had gone for her, the Replicator had barely restrained herself from backhanding him into a wall. That had unnerved her: People were supposed to love their daemons. Baeldor had made a show of cuddling up to Elizabeth for comfort and RepliWeir had realized that she couldn’t force him to leave her. 

She had confined Elizabeth to their quarters and prohibited her from interacting with the rebel Asuran crew. She told them that Elizabeth was an imperfect organic copy and that she was keeping Baeldor safe in their rooms. She quizzed Elizabeth endlessly on Ascension and daemon-lore. As with all Asuran copies, her memories seemed to consist of facts but no emotions, nothing associated with their daemons. 

The Replicator was obsessed with acquiring Baeldor as her own, and if she couldn’t force him to join her then she would just have to convince him that she was the real one. This was good as unbeknownst to her Elizabeth got. Front row seat as she walked Baeldor around the ship and a deeper insight into how the Replicators comprehended daemons.  
// My daily constitutional// as the daemon slyly referred to it.  
The didn’t actually >see< them as sentient beings. They couldn’t access memories associated with them, or their shared experiences with their humans, except as ‘corrupted files’ in their parlance. RepliWeir couldn’t remember Dreoides or anything associated with her and assumed that Baeldor was her daemon because the collective had done so. She thought he was a glorified pet. 

Elizabeth had been hiding the truth from her while also genuinely attempting to teach her replicator self to Ascend in the hopes that she could truly overcome the limitations of her creation. But her main motive was less altruistic: She and Baeldor were leading the Replicator towards compassion for her prisoners, in the hope that she would let them go. 

Weeks had passed, Elizabeth was slowly regaining her strength after the long months of captivity. Her other self kept her well fed and had begun to allow her out of their quarters to walk around the cargo hold to exercise and stretch her legs a little. But the continued strain and isolation were gnawing at her. Only her daemons kept her on the straight and narrow. She wasn’t sure what she’d have done without them to talk to. 

—

Over the last few days there had been a growing sense of anticipation: the Replicators were preparing to Ascend. When RepliWeir entered their quarters as usual to take Baeldor for his ‘walk’ she was more agitated than usual. She paced back and forth across the small room with precise steps. 

“We will Ascend tomorrow at midday. I will be taking Baeldor with me.” 

“Is he free to choose his own path?” 

She didn’t ask what would happen to her, she could tell from her expression. 

The Replicator looked beseechingly at Baeldor; it hadn’t helped her cause with the others that he choose not to be with her constantly “You have to join me!”

“What will happen to Lizabeth?”

“We are going to destroy this ship to prevent our return. She will remain on it.”  
Cold, but not unexpected. She hated her for her daemon. 

“You have to know by now that I’m the real Elizabeth. You know he’s not your daemon. If you murder me, my daemon will die too.” 

“No, he won’t.” There was a weapon in her hand. “And I’m going to prove it to you.” 

Baeldor crouched to launch himself at her just as her hand came up to aim directly at Elizabeth’s heart. 

“NO!!!!!!” 

Dreoides was in front of her, owl wings flapping wildly in the Replicator’s face in an attempt to protect her beloved Bethan. 

The weapon fell from RepliWeir’s hand. 

—

Dreoides could feel the tension and fear in her Bethan as she burst out into owl form in front of the Replictor. This had been absolutely forbidden by the other two who were convinced they could make it understand. They couldn’t, she was the only one who could. 

She settled onto Bethan’s shoulder as a male barn owl, keeping her large green eyes fixed on RepliWeir, whose eyes in turn followed her every movement. 

“I know that you don’t remember me. But I think a part of you must recognize me. Even just from the empty spaces in your memory.  
My name is Drew and I am Elizabeth Weir’s daemon.  
I never lost my ability to change my form - I’ve been hiding all this time right here with Elizabeth, to keep us both safe.”  
Dreo made sure to keep her voice and gaze gentle, unblinking.  
“I’m sorry, I truly am: You are a Replicator copy, constructed from the original nanites that infected us.”  
She glided in a circle around Elizabeth, landing in her arms.  
“This is my real Elizabeth: she’s got me and I’ve got her. What she said is true: if you kill her then I will disappear too.”  
The Replicators gaze dropped, then shifted to Baeldor.  
“Baeldor is John’s daemon. We need to get him home to him, to Atlantis.”

“Please.”

She looked devastated, and Elizabeth felt a twinge of sorrow for her.  
The Asuran programming wouldn’t allow her to just accept defeat and secondary status with her crew however, but she also couldn’t kill the original version of her. Somewhere inside she knew that was murder.  
“There’s a star system not too far off our present course. Habitable. I’ll leave you there.”  
She took one last look at Dreoides, flinched, and fled the room. 

// Grab everything you can, supplies, a knife…//  
Baeldor was in full on combat mode immediately, Elizabeth and Dreo were still processing the revelation and its possible fallout.  
\\\ You did amazingly, I’m so proud of you \\\ Dreo preened under her love and admiration.  
// Great, pep talk later. Survive first.//  
“But all we’ll need to do is find the Stargate and we can contact our allies for help.. ”

Dreo was still chuffed by her success.

“Let’s hope this planet actually has a Stargate then.” 

Baeldor didn’t trust the Asuran as far as he could toss her. Elizabeth figured it couldn’t hurt to prepare. She slipped her BDUs back on and layered her Asuran dress on top with the Flac vest over it, pockets filled with everything Dreo could stuff in, including her replica watch and a Padd that Baeldor had added to the pile.  
They settled down against the wall, wrapped in a blanket together, and waited for RepliWeir to return. Elizabeth felt herself dosing off. 

The bright flash of the transporter beam jolted her awake. 

The three stood up, feeling dizzy at the suddenly vast horizons. Endless blue sky, mountains behind, plains below. They were alone in the middle of nowhere, surrounding by birdsong. No people or signs of habitation as far as the eye could see. 

Elizabeth glanced up in time to see the bright streak of light as the rebel Asuran ship went into hyperspace. 

They were alone on an unknown world with only meagre supplies and no idea where the Stargate was or even if this planet had one. 

Just the three of them. 

They were free.


	16. Travels

John stared at the computer screen, where the words [ELIZABETH WEIR] had just resolved themselves. His team were reacting with shock and cautious hope, but all he could feel was denial: the word ‘no’ ringing over and over in his head. She couldn’t be dead, ascended, whatever, Dreoides and Baeldor gone…  
“Ask her if she knows what happened to her daemon.”  
[ASCENDED WITH ME] the screen answered him.  
“Name?”  
[DREW]  
He hesitated; that was the male form of her name that Dreo used when she was hiding.. Could it really be her?  
Rodney was waiting on him to make the call. They could be letting an alien entity make herself a replicator body right there in Atlantis. Or it could be Elizabeth. He wasn’t sure. It didn’t feel right, but, if there was even the smallest chance, he had to take it.  
“Do it.”

—

He should have known you could never trust a Replicator. Especially not an Asuran.

Oh, it had all started out well enough. Rodney had christened her RepliWeir (Stella had gone with Franibeth but was promptly shushed at his thunderous look) and she’d seemed genuine at first.  
Teyla and Hengar had shared their news about baby Torren and Vesta, and had given their endorsement, Though the fact that she lacked her daemon made everyone uncomfortable.  
Ronan had mentioned that she’d be just like him now, to which Teyla and Rodney had agreed. He found it darkly amusing that they were both match making and hoping to hide them out of sight. The Atlantis staff had been optimistic for once, as if things were going right for a change.  
And then she’d asked to bring her friends to the City. John had decided he needed to be sure. 

“Talk to me about what happened?”  
Her tale was antiseptic, cold. Analytical. But she’d been through so much trauma, it could be a coping mechanism. She knew that Baeldor was his daemon. The Asurans had never known that.  
But then she started to talk about ‘Drew’ again. Elizabeth had never once in all the time he’d known her, referred to her daemon as ‘Drew’ when speaking to him. The Replicator didn’t seem to miss her daemon. In fact, she kept referring to her as ‘him’. Knew he could ‘shapeshift’ but couldn’t say into what. And most damning of all, RepliWeir didn’t know Elizabeth’s daemon’s true settled form. 

He wasn’t sure he could keep losing her like this. 

“I know you’re not really her. You’re just another copy.”  
His heart was breaking yet again, and he couldn’t help letting some of that show in his expression, eyes misty with tears. His certainty struck her and she seemed to curl into herself, her expression blank. He wondered if any of it was real. 

“How did you know?”

“You got the details wrong.” 

Anger, pain, and finally resignation chased their way across her face. 

“She always has to win.”

“What???”  
Had she seen Elizabeth, did she know what had really happened to her?  
The replicator didn’t look like she wanted to share confidences, and he’d never been much for politics: what would Elizabeth say?  
“You know, you could win by being true to who Elizabeth is. Tell me the truth. What happened to her?”

For a moment he thought she would refuse, he could see the indecision warring inside her. Her better nature won. 

“Elizabeth was alive as of six weeks ago. I saved her and the two daemons from Asuras when your people destroyed the planet and left her there to die.” He felt elated, then sick, then elated, then terrified. “Six weeks ago?? Where the hell is she?!”  
“Before we Ascended, I left them on a planet in the Therac Sector of this galaxy. I don’t know which planet. But there weren’t many habitable planets in that sector. I can show you where.”

John felt his legs way and found himself collapsing to the floor. 

Alive. Elizabeth was alive. And he had a lead. More than that, a location. They would find her. Bring her home. 

He lifted his gaze to the Replicator: “Show me.”

—

Baeldor had inventoried their supplies with a grim look.  
// We need to find food, water, shelter, and the damn gate.//  
Elizabeth looked around once more and thought that she could spy a river’s flood plane in the distance, on the horizon. If there were people on this planet, they would likely be in that direction. It was as good a start as any. 

Dreoides was ecstatic to be free after so many long months captive and hidden as such a small creature. She had taken on the form of a kestrel, spread her wings, and glided upwards on a thermal in ever increasing circles. The tug she felt at being far from Elizabeth was always there but felt less painful now, more of an ache. Not enough to bring her down. She could stand to be a hundred feet away, perhaps more. This must be how the daemon’s of witches felt.  
// Can you see anything?//  
Baeldor was ever the soldier’s daemon.  
//Yes, the blue sky!// She giggled as she felt Baeldor roll his eyes at her antics. Sighing happily, she began to reconnoiter. She’d even got the lingo now. High mountain range behind them. They were in the low foothills. Dense forest below them, then sparse trees, plains, a river - smoke! She was sure she could see a tendril of smoke rising up in the far distance , perhaps even a building. Maybe one hundred miles away. Dreo dived for the ground, pulling up at the last moment to swoop around Bethan, over Baeldor, and landing on Bethan’s shoulder.  
// Did you see?//  
“Yes, we did.” Bethan pulled her into a cuddle as she settled into her vixen form. She’d missed her so so much when they were apart.  
“We’re not there yet. And we don’t know anything about the natives of this planet and we have very little to barter with…” His eye passed thoughtfully over Elizabeth. She knew it would be tough and they would have to be careful but they had come this far. She was going to get him home to John.  
“In that case, we’d better get moving.”

It took a day and a half to get out of the foothills and onto flatter ground. Food was low but they’d found a fresh water stream tumbling down the hill, she still had some water purification tablets in her vest. And now they could move a little faster. 

“Wait a minute! You can >actually< become a horse?” Baeldor’s head was whipping back and forth as he looked between them that Elizabeth worried he’d get whiplash.  
“You can actually >ride< her?” Elizabeth gave him her best glare.  
“We thought you were joking…”  
Dreo smirked at that, “Our parents would never buy us a pony so…”  
“Go on then: be a horse!”  
Dreo’s brush swished slowly side to side as she gathered her thoughts to shape the rarely used form.  
“I have to see this: no one has a horse daemon - have you ever seen anyone with a horse daemon?” Dreo settled into her new form and Baeldor froze. Staring. His grin grew to muzzle splitting proportions, his blue eyes like saucers. And then he collapsed to the ground in gales of laughter, rolling over and howling with mirth.  
Elizabeth was so caught by his happiness, it had been so long since he’d laughed, that it took her a moment to focus back on Dreo to discover the cause.  
Her jaw dropped. Then the laughter bubbled up and she couldn’t help herself. It had been so many months since she’d felt this free.  
“WHAT?” Drew was happy to see them happy, but was becoming a tad self-conscious.  
“You’re not exactly a horse, Dreo.”  
“You’re a Unicorn!!”  
Dreo tossed her pretty white mane and stomped her front hoof.  
“I guess I could gore you then.” She made a halfhearted attempt to catch him but he dodged playfully about her hooves, laughing harder. “Need to catch me first.”  
Dreo dropped down so that Bethan could climb onto her back. With a bound, Baeldor was off and running, loping along through the short grass of the plains.  
Elizabeth wrapped strands of Dreo’s mane around her hands and clung on tight.  
Dreo galloped after her wolf and towards home. 

—

John startled, unnerved, as RepliWeir entered the Jumper. Rodney had helped her construct a new body that looked just like Elizabeth and he still couldn’t get used to seeing her.  
He wished she hadn’t, it would have been so much easier on him, but it had been part of the deal she’d struck with Woolsey about her providing assistance in Dr. Weir’s recovery.

The Daedelus was back at Earth being refitted and Woolsey had refused to sanction a full scale rescue mission on the word of a Repicator who couldn’t quite remember where she’d parked her real self. So John had bargained for the new form in exchange for her coming with him in a Jumper to go find Elizabeth.  
Both Ronan and Teyla had immediately offered to join them, but he needed them in the City to hold the fort in his absence. Woolsey refused to let him take his senior scientist with him, so Rodney had to reluctantly remain.  
But he couldn’t face being in an enclosed space with RepliWeir for however long this took, so she’d suggested they bring a ‘third wheel’ along. Not that she’d said as much to Carson when she’d convinced him to come along. 

When they’d found the clone of Carson Beckett in Michael’s lab, they’d found him without a daemon. He had been convinced that Broc must be being held somewhere nearby and was despondent and couldn’t settle into life in Atlantis with all the memories it held of his beloved badger daemon. He’d returned from his traveling clinic when John called him about Elizabeth. He’d been eager to help, in part to prove to himself that he was still one of them, even without a daemon. He’d found it tough going, though his medical skills were prized throughout this galaxy, and had been easily convinced to join with the two other daemonless ones. 

The three settled into the Jumper, stowing supplies and checking inventories. RepliWeir took the front seat beside John’s as he powered up, called up the first gate address, and started the launch sequence. He flashed back to the last time Elizabeth had sat opposite him in that chair.  
“My presence here truly upsets you.” It wasn’t a question.  
“Not to worry lass, he just missed Elizabeth, that’s all. And Baeldor I imagine.”  
Carson already doing his job.  
“What are we calling you by the way? We can’t call you both Elizabeth.”  
She looked about to argue for first dibs on her name, but saw his expression and thought better of it, the anger draining away. “How about you call me Weir, and her Elizabeth.”  
John smiled weakly at her, but it was enough to make her heart constrict in her chest. She missed him so much. She was glad Carson had agreed to come along. 

—

The puddle jumper exited the gate and John climbed to a cruising altitude above the surface to take a look around.  
“OK, we’re in the right sector, the one you left her in. ” Harsh, but true. “We check this planet out then more on down the list until we find them.”  
Carson placed a comforting hand on his shoulder, “We will lad.”  
“Only 46 planets to go!” John glared at the Asuran but decided discretion was the better part of valor here. “How exactly to do plan to search the whole planet?”

John ignored her and moved to hand over the controls to Carson, who settled in to monitor the sensors. “What on earth are you doing John?” She looked utterly befuddled as he sat himself down against the rear bulkhead and leant his head back, closing his eyes. She had all Elizabeth’s expressions.  
“I’m trying to contact my daemon. A little quiet would be good.”  
He reached out to Baeldor as he always had when his daemon ran far from him.  
\\\ Baeldor? Are you here? \\\

There was no answer, but he would keep on trying. Until he found them.


	17. Journeying

They approached the village at noon, when a small market had gotten underway, so as to appear as normal and unthreatening as possible. Elizabeth had felt a moment of panic seeing so many faces, at the noise and bustle. Dreo curled up as a dormouse under the collar of her white dress as she strolled slowly towards the village well. Baeldor prowled by her side, feeling her unease, and ready to fend off any annoying locals. 

Everyone stared. They began to edge away from her, leaving a clear path to the well. Elizabeth noted a respectable elderly woman who seemed like she’d hold some clout in this community and moved to address her.  
“Good day to you. My name is Beth, I was traveling towards the Stargate when I was separated from my people. Could you provide me with directions and some food in return for some honest work?”  
She didn’t want to risk asking for charity - that could be risky depending on the culture she was dealing with. But the woman just seemed terrified of her.  
The menfolk shifted defensively, staring and pointing at Baeldor. Elizabeth had never actually witnessed the old cliche of children being hidden behind doors before now.  
// They’ve never seen a wolf before… //  
Dreo whispered to them both. Elizabeth realized it was true - the villagers knew Baeldor was a daemon. People always knew a daemon from an animal. But they didn’t know what kind of daemon he was, they didn’t recognize a wolf. Or perhaps it was closer to the truth to say they’d never seen one before. Because they seemed to be exhibiting a primal terror of one. And what did that say about her, if this was her daemon?  
A man approached, who looked like the village head. He carried a loaf and some fruits wrapped in a cloth.  
“Let it not be said that we broke the law of hospitality, woman. Here is some food for your journey. The gate lies to the East. Now, please, be gone from here!”  
Superstitious. They thought she might be a spirit or magical being and didn’t want to get on her bad side. Baeldor growled softly and every villager seemed to jump back a pace.  
// Its in the collective unconscious, even in Pegasus, to fear wolves..//  
Elizabeth sighed inwardly at her daemon, put on her most regal expression, and accepted the parcel like a votive offering. She continued on through the village and out the other side, heading east, towards the gate. 

— 

// We’re being followed. //

Baeldor had been on edge since they’d left the little hamlet behind. The fields around them had begun to give was to coppicing, and then to a small wood. He insisted they keep going.  
// Are they just seeing us beyond their boundaries? //  
// If the stop before the tree line then yes.//  
// And if they don’t?//  
// Time for you to be a wolf.//  
Elizabeth kept walking, the trees became thicker, Dreo moved to trot by her side. Baeldor had disappeared into the trees beside the path, doubling back on their pursuers.  
She found herself in a small clearing and turned to find three men fanning out behind her, small ferret-like daemons hissing at their feet.  
The first man raised a heavy stick above his head, and promptly collapsed, dead, as his daemon turned to golden Dust in the daylight. The second man had barely had time to turn in his direction before Baeldor was on his daemon, ripping out her throat. The daemon turned to Dust as her human thudded to the ground. The last man had turned to flee in terror but barely made it beyond the clearing before Baeldor caught his daemon.  
Elizabeth had never witnessed Baeldor hunt before. She knew it was a standard military practice. That it had been considered a formidable battle tactic by ancient empires. But seeing it chilled her, freezing her in place for a moment. Baeldor looked at her with mournful eyes, fearing her reaction. Dreoides sprang to his side in her vixen form, rubbing her head against him. Both daemons relaxed and Elizabeth approached the dead men.  
“Gather everything useful you can find.”  
All three carried small bags of coins, one had a pocket knife, another a thin blade.  
“They were just frightened, trying to defend their village.”  
“And they were going to kill us.”  
“We know that. We do. It doesn’t change how we feel about you.”  
Dreo hadn’t broken their physical contact, and Elizabeth now reached out to card her fingers through his fur.  
She couldn’t take this risk again, she was going to have to use her skill set and not just rely on Baeldor.  
Dreo became a roan horse, “I remembered.”  
They galloped down the small road, trying to put as much distance between them and the village as possible before nightfall. 

—

Their first encounter with the locals had been a little… disheartening, Elizabeth thought. Dreo cast her a look as she trotted daintily by her side. They were used to charming people everywhere they went, easily getting them to agree to their terms whether in tense diplomatic situations or the domestic squabbles she’d dealt with daily on Atlantis. She had never liked having to resort to military tactics, even when John had convinced her of the necessity. The coins they’d ‘appropriated’ jingled in her pocket as she walked. They would have to do better. 

“Next village we come to, we present Dreo as my daemon.”  
“And where will I be?” She could feel Baeldor’s hurt across their bond now clearly, Dreo flitted over as a robin and perched on his neck.  
She looked around and again noted the absence of any large wildlife or domesticated animals. No horses or cattle. No dogs or wolves…  
“Baeldor, you’re rather unique here.”  
Dreo had had to cease being a horse once they came in view of the next town - they stood out for miles in the flat countryside. Baeldor had terrified the few people they’d passed on the road.  
“They don’t trust me because they’re afraid of you, you don’t fit their expectations of what a daemon should be.”  
Dreo chirped happily, “And that’s absolutely my forte.”  
“Good for you. And what am I exactly?” He didn’t like the sound of this. His girls shared a conspiratorial look. “No. No. I absolutely refuse.” They just giggled. 

—

“Be welcome, Stranger. Come, try some fruit!”  
The curious vendor beckoned Elizabeth closer, staring openly at Baeldor who padded obediently close by her side. Elizabeth smiled, handed over a few coins in exchange for some apple like fruit and moved on through the market towards the town square where the local magistrates were reading the announcements.  
A silence descended, but an interested one. An older man, one of the senior townsfolk, stepped forward with arms wide in a welcoming gesture. He glanced to Baeldor and then to Dreo, who was a bright blue wren like bird, circling Elizabeth’s head. According to these people, this implied Elizabeth was an honorable and high-born woman, and they treated her accordingly.  
“Welcome, lady. I am Barus. From where have you traveled on this fine day?”

“Greetings, sir. I am Elizabeth of the Tauri. I have been stranded on this planet by a people known as the Asurans. I am searching for the Ancestor’s Stargate to travel home to my people.”  
Nods and murmurs of sympathy from the crowd.  
“And this awful creature?” The elder looked fascinated and appalled by turns by Baeldor. 

“Oh yes, of course, I see that you have no such creatures on this world: This is my guard dog. Sheppard.”  
Elizabeth could barely suppress a laugh; in lieu of string she’d made a daisy chain of some wild flowers and paced it around Baeldor’s neck. Dreo had added a few more here and there in his coat. Baeldor was grumbling good humoredly across their bond, but he kept his eyes down and stuck closer to her side, hoping that with Dreo there they might not realize he was also a daemon.  
“A ‘dog’? What manner of creature is that?”  
“Yes, they’re very common on my world, We keep them as companions, as working animals, and for protection. This one is bred to protect families from the wild creatures of our world. He was given to me by my husband as a wedding gift.” She didn’t have to feign sadness, though John would likely be surprised to hear he was off the market.  
“He is all I have left of him, and my people.”  
The locals had heard enough to satisfy their curiosity for now, and began to drift away.  
“You say you are looking for the stargate?” The elder lead her towards an awning cover table covered in legal documents and writing implements. Nothing that looked high tech.  
“Yes, can you direct me to it? Is it far?”  
“Certainly I can, lady. But you should know.. The gate on this planet has long been broken, the dais of symbols was taken away by the Ancestors so that none could leave. The people of Arla have been stranded here over many centuries, by accident or design. If your enemies have stranded you here, I fear you may never return to your people again.” 

Elizabeth slumped down into her chair, leaning heavily on the table. Her daemons both huddled closer to her in shock. She took a moment to process this latest set-back.  
“And are there no artifacts here left by the Ancestors, a temple perhaps? Are you sure there is no other dais?”  
“There is a temple, the temple of the winds.. Some have tried to study its writings but none here can bring it to life nor interpret its secrets.”  
Finally, some good news.  
“Then I can be of use to your people, Barus: I speak the language of the Ancestors, on my world I study their texts so that my people can make use of their great works. And I have some gifts for bringing it to life. If your people will assist me to the temple, then, if the Ancestors allow, I will open the gate.”

Dreo was a fine hawk on her shoulder, truthfulness and learning. Barus nodded, smiled, and handed her a small Ancient artifact that looked like it had been broken off a larger piece but obviously was held reverently here as a mark of office. Baeldor surreptitiously put his nose to it, and it glowed. Barus startled, then began shouting orders for food and drink to be brought.  
“It is a fine thing that you have come among us, Lady Elizabeth. A find thing indeed. We will see you safely to the gate city, have no fear. But first, come! Break bread with us!”

—

The search team had visited 23 of the 47 habitable worlds listed in the Ancient database for this sector of space. There had been no sign of Elizabeth or their daemons on any them. John could feel panic edging its way into his thoughts more and more with each passing day and each planet checked off the list. His shaky trust in RepliWeir was wearing thinner just as quickly. How the hell could a machine with perfect recall just forget where she’d dumped her human self? Except purposefully.  
She was never anything but civil to either of the two humans, always kept her distance from John, trying not to overstep. But he caught her watching him when she thought he wasn’t looking. It made his skin crawl, made him furious, because he knew she was remembering Elizabeth and him. Together. Knew she thought that they had a past together. And it terrified him to think that she might purposefully sabotage the rescue mission in the vain hope of taking Elizabeth’s place. 

Planet 24 had a small native population within a few clicks of the gate. He sat the jumper down in a clearing just outside the town so they could question the locals and take on some supplies. Carson was a saint, keeping John from snapping and offering always much appreciated medical treatments to the locals in return for their help. He was soon lost among a gathering crowd of patients and John went to quiz the local bigwig and any off world travelers.  
No joy.  
Planet 24 was shaping up to be another bust. 

He decided to at least grab some supplies.  
“We should save some of those berries for Elizabeth…”  
John jumped as she spoke - he hadn’t noticed her sneaking up behind him and that irritated him even more: Elizabeth didn’t do stealth.  
“Are you actually planning on finding her then?”  
It came out more desperate that he’d have liked. The Replicator stared at him with Elizabeth’s eyes. But not her soul. He glared back at her, and after a moment, she looked down and away.  
“I know you miss her. I know you want her back. And I know that my memories are really hers, but it feels like they’re mine. I would never purposefully hurt you John. I’m on your side. I want to get her back just as much as you do. For myself as well as for you.  
I can never be free to be my own person until I get them home to you. To see you and Baeldor whole again…”  
He felt the bubble of hatred towards her burst and drain away, leaving that aching emptiness where Baeldor and Lizabeth should be. He was focusing all his anger at her to escape his own guilt and pain. And that was going to screw their chances if he didn’t get himself under control. 

“Grab some more of those berries then and we’ll get back on the road.”

RepliWeir smiled at him and he found himself thinking of her as her own person for once. 

Maybe Planet 24 hadn’t been a total bust after all.


	18. Converging

Elizabeth pushed on up the hill against the wind, Baeldor at her side and Dreo on her shoulder. The Temple of the Winds had turned out to be an Ancient research station, set in the gently rolling hills above a river delta where the stargate was located. The oldest settlement on Arla had grown into a city of a few thousand people on the banks of the river. She could see the sea clearly from this elevation, looking calm at a few kilometers distance. The stargate itself sat solitary on an artificial island midstream. She’d stopped on this same promontory every time she’s made the trek to the station to search for any sign of the DHD or another Ancient outpost. Nothing stood out. If the Ancients hadn’t removed the DHD themselves, it was likely it had simply been washed out to sea by a flood over the millennia. 

Barus, the town elder she’d charmed had given her letters of recommendation and safe passage, along with directions on where to go and who to speak to. She’d impressed the various townsfolk along the way with her ability to activate Ancient tech and her translations of their world’s older historical records, which were written in a dialect of Genii. She’d been able to earn her bread and board translating documents and mediating petty disputes and had arrived in the city to find that her reputation had preceded her. 

The Arlans still devoutly worshiped the Ancients as their god-like Ancestors, perhaps the more so for hoping they might take pity on them and fix the gate. The outpost was revered as a sacred temple and there had been some misgivings about letting her wander it freely.  
None of the scholars understood Ancient, which turned out to be a good thing, as the majority of the writings were in a dialect Elizabeth had never seen before. There’d been a few moments where she’d worried about losing her position with these people but then she’d caught the similarities to older Celtic languages and she’d been able to make it out. And then they’d taken her to their ‘temple’. 

The outpost was beautiful, as all Ancient architecture was, but this was in a different style. Reminiscent of Atlantis, but wilder, less formal somehow.The rising columns seemed to have grown out of the earth, twisting around one another like ivy. She could >feel< the Dust swirling around and through them, being channeled into the heart of the structure. She’d loved it immediately, feeling strangely at home, even more than on Atlantis. . 

As she’d stepped over the threshold the outpost had hummed to life. This place wasn’t like any other Ancient technology she’s ever encountered: Dreoides was joyfully flitting as a blackbird through the currents of Dust, humming the tune they could both hear so clearly now. For the first time, Elizabeth knew what the place was saying to her. She and Dreo reached out together and asked it for its story. With a joyful lilt the ‘Temple’ began to sing to her. 

Baeldor padded uneasily in Lizabeth’s wake, carefully eyeing a delighted Dreo. He understood that they could finally hear the Ancient tech without effort and what it was telling them through their shared bond. But he couldn’t hear it himself, the hum was there but there were no words. More like the buzz of a not-quite-happy beehive. It wasn’t too happy to see him, in face he got the distinct impression it wanted him gone. He could almost feel it pushing him away. There was a deeper rumbling now, building under the ever present hum.  
\\\ No, no, he’s my daemon too \\\  
Elizabeth reached out to place her hand on him, tug him closer to her side. Dreo came to perch on him.  
The rumbling calmed, the pressure eased - a sense of grudging acceptance, then understanding, and finally welcome. Baeldor wasn’t quite sure what the hell was going on, but at least he was no longer persona non grata. 

The locals who had accompanied them were mostly left standing in awe as their Temple came to life around them. The newly arrived offworlder had been speaking the truth, and the excitement at the real possibility of opening the gate was palpable.  
A few grumbled unhappily though. It was a desecration of the Temple to allow this offworlder and her creature to enter it, how were they to know she was one of the good Ancestors and not one of the Evil Ones who would lead them astray? 

—

Elizabeth continued her climb, entering the outpost and relaxing into the happy hum of the place. It had been a science station for the study of Dust. The spires had been designed to funnel more Dust than usual into the central lab where the Alterans had been developing the technology to incorporate Dust into the creations. They had been studying the origins of Dust. Listening to it.  
And it had spoken to them.  
Their notes described how the Dust told them things: about the past, the present, and even some snippets of the future. They’d been studying how daemons came into being, how they were connected to the Dust and to their people.  
It was amazing! The fundamentals of both Ancient technology and Ascension were here in this lab.  
Rodney would love this place, he might never leave…  
If they could just find something on the DHD, or even a communications device. 

Elizabeth headed to the central lab facility. They hadn’t found a secondary DHD or gate, or even a jumper. Baeldor had also scouted the area surrounding the outpost and found nothing.  
There was only the Dust-fueled ‘Magic 8 Ball’ room, as Baeldor had christened it.  
Grinning to herself at yet another ridiculous name, Elizabeth sat down at the central device. It was similar in size and shape to a DHD, but level and covered with symbols, not the usual constellations, but pictograms that, according to the Ancient’s notes, represented conceptual ideas.  
There were various animals, plants, objects, symbols for people. Each one had various meanings, but the interpretive guide ran to thousands of pages long and was still incomplete. 

But it was what it could do that was important: you could formulate a question by touching the symbols. And the Dust answered you. 

Dreo hopped up onto her lap, ducking under her arms, while baeldor placed his front paws on the edge to get a better look.  
“Ask about a ship again.” He nudged her hands towards what they thought were the right symbols:  
[ship] [woman] [question]  
A series of symbols began to glow in sequence, the same ones as the last time they’d asked:  
[ship] [tower] [gate] [man] [sword] [man] [plant] [woman] [wheel] [inverted Y]  
“Well. That’s clear as mud really - any new suggestions as to where this ship could be?” Elizabeth had been trying to figure out how this could point to any geographical place for a week now.  
“You two! Honestly! I’m telling you: it means John’s looking for us and he’s going to come and rescue us. In a ship.” Dreo was convinced.  
Baeldor rolled his eyes but didn’t contradict her.  
“Could be a warning, there’s been a lot more unrest with the Loyalists lately, Davin was concerned they might be planning to attack us and ‘cleanse’ the Temple..”

Davin was the city’s governor; she’d supported Elizabeth’s research at the outpost. She wasn’t an overly religious type, and her youngest son had contracted an illness that the local medics couldn’t cure. Elizabeth had promised Atlantis would provide medical aid, once she managed to contact them. The Loyalists, on the other hand, remembered all to well that the Wraith were still out there. They believed that their Ancestors had led them here to protect them - they did not want Elizabeth to open the gate and let them know where to find another snack. So far there had been a petition and some heated words but nothing violent. She and Dreo hoped they could talk their way out of it. Baeldor was prepping for a fight. 

“Ask it if they’re going to attack us, then.” Dreo looked between them. “Can’t hurt to try!” 

[tri-spiral] for faith, [bee] for an organized group, [man], [dagger] and [wasp] for violence, [woman] [question]  
This time the glow of the lights was almost dizzying, they cycled so quickly through the sequence.  
[tri-spiral] [bee] [man] [tower] [ruin] [dagger] [wasp] [inverted Y]  
“I’m going to go out on a limb and say that means they’re planning to attack.” Baeldor wasn’t happy to be proven correct.  
“But what does that upside down Y mean?” Dreo brought her head down closer to look,  
“I mean it’s funny they’d have the letter y, isn’t it?”  
“They don’t.” Elizabeth froze, the notes suddenly making sense.  
“Convergence, space-time paths joining - it means soon…”  
Baeldor’s ears pricked up, hackles raised as he spun around towards the main entrance,  
“I think it means now.”  
“They’re here.”

—

John brought the Jumper through the gate onto Planet 32 and immediately had to ascend above the river delta in a wide arc to avoid the town on its banks.  
“I’ll take over for ye lad, go do yer thing.”  
“Yeah. Yeah.” John didn’t move.  
Carson shook his shoulder gently. “Are ye alright, lad? What is it?”  
RepliWeir leaned towards him, face concerned, “John?”

Baeldor. It was like he was in two places at once. He could feel his daemon and it was like a spark had been rekindled in his heart. For the first time since he’d lost them, he felt alive.  
A smile lit up his face.  
“They’re here!”

His daemon was 4 clicks away in an Ancient outpost with Lizabeth and Dreo. They were alive. They were unhurt. They were surrounded by an angry mob and under attack.  
The smile faded, leaving the determined soldier look in its place.  
“They need help. Let’s go!”  
He swung the Jumper around towards the hills in the distance, as Carson prepped his medical supplies and RepliWeir grabbed their weapons. 

—

“Oh wait. Now they’re here too.” 

“What?”  
Elizabeth slid to a stop in an alcove just inside the outpost’s entrance and spun round to face an oddly smiling Baeldor.  
“Baeldor? Defenses? Getting this door sealed?”  
Dreo had been scanning outside as a butterfly and now flitted over.  
“Really? Really?! I knew it, I knew it. I was right!”  
She puffed up into an eagle before hitting the floor as a vixen and dodging into the alcove with Elizabeth, narrowly avoiding an arrow. Elizabeth tried to pull Baeldor out of harms way, but he ran to the entrance and stared out avidly.  
Suddenly, he raised his head, let out a howl of happiness, and ran out the door. 

The locals froze at the sound evoked terror in their souls. And then scattered like leaves before the wind as the Jumper descended into the clearing. Drones fired off, chasing the would-be attackers off and putting the fear of their Ancestor gods into them. They ran off into the trees and down the hillside in a disorganized rout.  
The Jumper landed in front of the outpost entrance, covering the door, the hatch descending. 

Before it had even touched the ground Baeldor had sprung towards it and was inside in a heartbeat, barreling full tilt into the man wearing Atlantis BDUs. A man with wild dark hair and bright blue eyes.

Their eyes met and Elizabeth felt her heart shudder to life.

“John.”

—

John had been out of the pilots chair almost before the Jumper was down. Desperate to see them. To touch them. To be sure that they were finally, really, back.  
Baeldor had read his mind - he laughed with joy because he could do that again - and the massive ball of black fur that was his daemon collided with him, knocking him to the floor.  
Warmth. Peace. Centredness. Completeness.  
He’d been missing so much, and now he could feel it all again. Like someone had turned the colors back up on the world. And fixed the gravity. John hugged Baeldor to him fiercely for a long moment.  
\\\ I missed you so much. \\\  
// You wandered off! I told you to stay close and not get lost! //  
John just laughed. \\\ Scouts honor, I’ll never wander off again. \\\  
He was never letting his daemon out of his sight, ever again. 

John raised his head and his eyes locked on the woman and daemon before him: Elizabeth.  
His Elizabeth. With Dreo. She was whole. She was real.  
Her soft smile sent a shiver of joy through him. John found himself standing before her before he knew he’d moved. 

Elizabeth could barely believe that he’d found them. That he’d been looking for them all this time.  
John hadn’t given up on her. Her soft smile grew and lit up her face. She there her arms around him and hugged him tightly to her for a few endless moments before pulling back just enough to rest her forehead against his.  
Dreoides fluttered up to Elizabeth’s shoulder, draping herself in vixen form around her neck. Ever so gently she reached out to nuzzle against the bare skin of John’s neck. It was exquisite. John sighed, one hand cupping Elizabeth’s face, thumb brushing lightly across her cheek.  
Baeldor rubbed up against their legs, circling around them. 

“You okay?” She’d missed that lopsided grin far too much. 

“No.” She gave him that patented raised eyebrow look and he just wanted to drag her away some place private right now. 

“You will be.” He kissed her. 

—

“Don’t mind us! We’ll just be over here, running off the bad guys, securing the perimeter.”  
RepliWeir felt snarking was entirely justified given the melodrama unfolding between John and real-her.  
“Ah, leave them be, lass,” Carson had always been a softie, “Let them have their little moment.”  
He patted her arm, turning their backs to the reunited couple.  
“You are such a romantic Carson!” She laughed the moment off. She was happy they’d found the real her. Now she was free to live her own life without the specter of her real self hanging over her. She just wished that they could have made a copy of John for her to reunite with. 

“So, what now?” Carson looked around at the Ancient facility.  
“Feels different to other Ancient tech, somehow, wilder, less fussy.”  
She glanced at him questioningly.  
“It’s odd, but it reminds me of home.”  
Carson shook his head to clear it of the odd thought of Scotland and his lost daemon Broc.  
He stared up at the spires and had the oddest impression of a raven gliding on the breeze. 

—

The Atlantis team had spent the night in the Ancient station, laughing, telling stories, celebrating the little victories Pegasus had allowed them. Elizabeth had shown the others the central device and told them what she knew of its purpose. Both RepliWeir and Carson had been fascinated by the place and the possibility of learning more about daemons. Carson, especially, had become convinced he could find his daemon here.  
John had flown them down to the town square, where they’d made a rather grand entrance. Elizabeth had introduced them to Davin and explained that the Jumper had its own dialing device that they could use to dial out. Atlantis would want to send teams through to study their Temple and would be willing to trade for the privilege. They might even find them a spare DHD.  
Davin’s was more convinced by Carson’s medicines for her son, and had happily agreed to trade negotiations. 

Now, it was time to go home. 

Elizabeth turned from the Jumper hatch, and hugged Carson tightly, not quite able to keep the tears at bay. “Are you really sure about this?”  
“Aye, lass, I’m sure: these people could do with a doctor, and this place…”  
“I know, you can almost see the Dust here.”  
“It might sound crazy, but I think I can feel him now.”  
“Broc?”  
“No. No he isn’t Broc. Another daemon. He’s someone else. I’m someone else. And I think I can live with that now.”  
He smiled faintly, staring up at the spires.  
Elizabeth felt like she was losing him all over again. She’d just learned that they’d miraculously gotten Carson back, only to find that they never really had. Almost.  
She felt John’s hand settle against the small of her back and she leaned into his support for a moment before he moved pack to his flight checks.  
// He’ll be okay here. Happy even. And we’ll see him for visits. //  
What would she do without Dreo? Right.  
Now there was just Repli-her to deal with. 

As she approached, the Replicator stood from inventorying supplies and turned, straightening up she assumed her best diplomatic face. Elizabeth knew it well. What did she feel about this machine doppelganger?  
She’d saved her from Asuras. Only to try and steal Baeldor from her.  
She’d abandoned her on this planet to her fate. And then lead John back here to rescue her.  
She’d changed. Grown. Become her own person.  
Elizabeth realized that in time she would be able to forgive her, perhaps even grow to trust her. 

“So. What are you going to do now?”  
“I thought I was staying here?” She smirked at her real self.  
“We know ourselves better than that.” True.  
RepliWeir’s eyes darted to John and Baeldor.  
“I’ll stay for a while, get Carson settled in. But then I’m going to go looking.. There was an Asuran copy of Atlantis.. maybe..”  
Dreo cuddled closer to Elizabeth's neck.  
// I hope she finds her RepliSheppard out there somewhere.//  
\\\ I never realized we were such romantics \\\  
She was pretty sure John would hate that idea but only smiled in answer to her Repli-self. 

And then she realized that if she truly accepted her existence, she couldn’t keep refering to her as a Replicator. 

“Best of luck. Elizabeth.” 

The new Elizabeth smiled and impulsively hugged her, careful to avoid touching Dreoides, and moved back to stand beside Carson. 

Last of the checks complete, Elizabeth and Dreoides settled into the copilot seat. John closed up the hatch and took off. Baeldor curled up at her feet.  
“Traitor!”  
John couldn’t seem to stop smiling. His daemon gave him a smug look and put his head on Elizabeth’s lap. John reached his hand across the console to clasp hers.  
“Can’t gate directly to the City, so we’ll head to the Alpha site first, make contact, and plan the party. Have you home in no time!” 

Elizabeth ran her thumb softly over the back of his hand. She’d been away for so long, she knew that they should head back as soon as possible. But then there’d be medical exams, and endless debriefings, and quarantines, and questions. There would be no time to be alone. Just the four of them. 

This was the first time they’d been alone together in more than a year. 

“Are we in a rush?”

She heard his breath hitch. Baeldor moved to brush against the skin of her arm and John shuddered. 

“No rush…”


	19. New Beginnings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The End of the Beginning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally finished!  
Had no idea it would be this difficult or take this long to write a multi chapter story. I have new respect for all those authors writing epics for our enjoyment.  
Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it :)

Readjusting to life on Atlantis have been harder than Elizabeth had imagined.  
Dreo had thought it would be perfect, all sunshine and roses. That everything would simply fall back into place.  
Except it didn’t. It couldn’t. They were all different people, their paths had diverged and couldn’t quite fit back together in the same way they once had. But bless them, they tried.

Teyla and Rodney made an effort to include her in all their activities. They tried to fill her in on all the things she’d missed though it didn’t always work; Rodney especially had a terrible knack for making her feel like an outsider. And would then bring her coffee the next day to apologize. She and Teyla would laugh about it over Athosian tea in Teyla’s quarters, while Elizabeth bounced Torren on her knee and heard all the gossip she’d missed. Ronan said hello as he passed by and continued about his day, so she supposed nothing had changed there.

Carson was missing, but Lorne was still there and had been truly delighted to welcome her home. Elizabeth found herself spending a lot of her spare time with him and his team. It was somehow easier to learn more about them than find out what she’d missed with John and his team.

Dreo simply hated Woolsey and could not be stopped in her campaign to intimidate his duck daemon every time they met with an array of hunting dog, fox, and wolf forms. Elizabeth had to admit that it was now the highlight of her working day to watch him squirm as she slyly critiqued his decisions and leadership. Fair was fair, after all. And damn it, it was her city.

She’d been assigned to head the somewhat newly minted Diplomatic department, which meant she spent her days translating the Ancient database for the science departments, working on trade agreements and treaties with off world teams, and helping Carson on Arla with the Dust research.

She hadn’t yet been allowed to go offworld. John, as head of the military had to clear her, and he refused to even let her out of the room on her own without Baeldor shadowing her, let alone leave the City. She’d gotten so used to having Baeldor with her constantly that at first she didn’t even notice. It was only when Teyla pointed it out that she realized how uncomfortable it made people, how unnatural they thought it was. And that she didn’t care what they thought.

John. God, how she’d missed him, even with Baeldor by her side. Getting back to him, reuniting him with his daemon had kept her going, kept her fighting to survive.

They had talked about keeping their relationship private, about how that relationship might affect her chances of re-assuming command. But Dreo and Baeldor had had other ideas.  
Baeldor had adamantly refused to sleep apart from her, and she found she couldn’t sleep peacefully without him. Since John refused to be without his daemon, they had decided to move in together. Dreo had found that while she would never be happy that far away from her Bethan, she could manage a few floors if she could be near John. The two had been spending a lot of time together, as if to balance out the scales.

John was adjusting to being accepted back into society again now that Baeldor had returned. He’d never been an overly social person, preferring a small group of close friends, so that didn’t make a huge difference. But he couldn’t quite forget the way he’d been treated as a pariah and he was a little more professional and a little less friendly with his subordinates. He felt he could at least lead properly again now that he had his daemon back, but it was taking time for him to readjust as well.

Elizabeth had spent many hours each day, when she was supposed to be doing translation work, practicing controlling Ancient tech. After all the time spent on Asuras and at the Ancient outpost, she’d finally found the ‘hack’ to let her access it without the need for the ATA gene. She’d told only John, not wanting the headache of the endless tests and paperwork that would accompany such a declaration. She’d managed small things at first, but slowly she felt the City recognize and respond to her. Now Dreo had only to put a paw into a room to have the City tell her exactly what had gone on there and where exactly the dangerous trip switches might be. She and John had continued to keep it from Woolsey, but his team and Lorne had worked it out, and Rodney had started to call for her, rather than John, when he needed help in the lab.

All in all, life was good. Not like before. Some things were better. Some things worse.  
But she and John and their daemons were together, and in the end, that was all she needed.

—

Life on Atlantis was never boring for long, and while Elizabeth had been settling back in, the Universe had been preparing to throw yet another curve ball at them. The team on Arla had been routinely asking questions of the Dust interface device and sending the answering symbols to Elizabeth to analyze.

The Wraith were on their way to Earth.

John, having prepped Atlantis’ defenses, had gated back to Earth to man the Antarctic control chair. He’d reluctantly left Baeldor behind, not wanting to part from him, but knowing that Baeldor could not be forced to leave his Lizabeth. She’d tried to convince him, but he’d been despondent and in the end John had hugged him close, kissed Elizabeth goodbye, run his fingers through Dreoides brush, and shipped out back to the homeworld.

In the City, Rodney and Stella panicked over getting the newly discovered wormhole drive online. They were now waiting for Carson to gate back from Arla. Only to find he was too ill to man the chair when he arrived. His newly formed daemon, Fiach, was still only weakly holding his visible form and couldn’t bear the pressures of interacting with the City’s control systems.  
Stella had been squawking so loudly that she and Woolsey’s duck daemon had almost drowned out Elizabeth’s suggestion that she could do it.  
It took Dreo assuming an eagle form and swooping at the pair of them to get them to shut up.  
This had the positive side effect of making everyone in the control room look to her for leadership. Once he realized she was serious, Woolsey backed down without much comment and Elizabeth found herself giving the orders in her City once again. The City sang happily to her.

She settled into the control chair, Dreo on her lap and Baeldor at her feet, and felt Atlantis soar into the skies. She activated the wormhole drive once they cleared the atmosphere, and they were on their way home. To Earth and to John.  
“He really does like to wander off, doesn’t he?” Baeldor would never let that go. Dreo giggled.

Elizabeth had just enough time to roll her eyes before they exited the wormhole into Earth orbit, and they were in the middle of a space battle.

—

The crisp sea air of the Atlantic Ocean blew across the balcony as they stood looking out at the twinkling lights of the New York skyline. The Statue of Liberty was lit up like a welcoming beacon, the noise of the city dulled by distance but still audible across the water.

Atlantis had come home.

Earth had been saved from the Wraith and disaster, not that most of the inhabitants would ever know how close it had been.

John wrapped his arms around Elizabeth, pulling her tight against his chest and resting his head against her shoulder. Dreoides sat on her other shoulder, brush swishing gently against his arm. Baeldor’s front paws rested on the balcony railing in front of them, fur ruffling in the breeze.

Their team stood arrayed around them, basking in the moment.  
They had succeeded against all the odds. They had lost some friends along the way and found others.

They had saved the world.

They had found the lost city of Atlantis.

And they had brought it home.

John hummed in Elizabeth’s ear, “Thought the SGC wanted you to land this thing in the Pacific?”

Elizabeth graced him with her patented look. Dreo and Baeldor perked up their ears and smiled at one another knowingly.

“John, this is Atlantis - ”

“ - We are right where we belong.”

**Author's Note:**

> For those who don't know His Dark Materials lore:
> 
> Daemons are a person's soul that exists outside their body in the form of an animal.  
Children's daemons can take on any form, but 'settle' sometime before they reach adulthood.  
Almost everyone had a daemon of the opposite sex to them, but a small number of people have one the same. Philip Pullman has said this may be because they are psychic, so here they have the ATA gene.  
It is taboo to touch another person's daemon, except in an intimate setting.


End file.
